Obrigado Brazil (remastered)

Obrigado Brazil takes Yo-Yo to the heart of Brazsilian music, from samba & bossa nova to classical.

YO-YO MA Cellist The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music or exploring cultures and musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, Mr. Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination.

Yo-Yo Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras throughout the world and his recital and chamber music activities. He draws inspiration from a wide circle of collaborators, each fueled by the artists' interactions. One of Mr. Ma's goals is the exploration of music as a means of communication, and as a vehicle for the migrations of ideas, across a range of cultures throughout the world.

Taking this interest even further, Mr. Ma established the Silk Road Project to promote the study of the cultural, artistic and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade route that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. By examining the flow of ideas throughout this vast area, the Project seeks to illuminate the heritages of the Silk Road countries and identify the voices that represent these traditions today. The Silk Road Project acts as an umbrella organization and common resource for a range of cultural and educational programs, participating in more than a dozen festivals, including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002. To learn more, visit the Silk Road Project website at www.silkroadproject.org.

Mr. Ma is an exclusive Sony Classical artist, and his discography of over 50 albums (including 14 Grammy award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. In addition to the standard concerto repertoire, Mr. Ma has recorded many of the large body of works that he has commissioned or premiered. He has also made several successful recordings that defy categorization, among them "Hush" with Bobby McFerrin, "Appalachia Waltz" and Grammy-winner "Appalachian Journey" with Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer, and "Piazzolla: Soul of the Tango." Mr. Ma's most recent Sony Classical releases include "Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet," "Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams," and "Classic Yo-Yo." Across the full range of releases Mr. Ma remains one of the best-selling recording artists in the classical field.

Yo-Yo Ma is strongly committed to educational programs that not only bring young audiences into contact with music but also allow them to participate in its creation. While touring, he takes time whenever possible to conduct master classes as well as more informal programs for students-musicians and non-musicians alike.

Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age 4 and soon came with his family to New York, where he spent most of his formative years. Later, his principal teacher was Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School. He sought out a traditional liberal arts education to expand upon his conservatory training, graduating from Harvard University in 1976. Mr. Ma and his wife have two children.

He plays two instruments, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.