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That eclecticism helps to differentiate Ma from other prodigies. He likes to do calligraphy and play chess. He is reading Don Quixote. He brings the same sense of exploration to the cello repertoire: he has performed such oddities as the concerti of Dmitri Kabalevsky and Gerald Finzi, plus his own transcription of the Brahms D minor violin sonata.
Ma is concertizing in Europe now, and top orchestras are signing him up well into the '80s. He remains an artist-in-residence at Harvard, where his wife Jill, 27, teaches German. Last fall they played host at an old-fashioned waltz party in Leverett House. Yo-Yo spent the evening sawing away at Strauss in the student orchestra.
Says he: "Good music is good music." -