The most famous cellist alive spends interviews asking about you instead. New NYT profile on Yo-Yo Ma at 70 has a line from Obama that stuck with me: "For every question you ask him, he asks you two in return." Worth thinking about what we're actually modeling when people pay attention to us.
#YoYoMa #ClassicalMusic #ComposerLife
Script (talking-head opinion reel)
HOOK (0:00-0:04) The most famous cellist alive gets interviewed, and he spends the whole time asking about you. BEAT 1 (0:04-0:12) [shot: talking head, direct to camera] There's a new NYT profile on Yo-Yo Ma turning 70. The reporter followed him for a full concert season. And the thing that stuck with me wasn't the music. BEAT 2 (0:12-0:24) [shot: hold up phone/screen with the quote, or on-screen text overlay] Obama has said about him: "For every question you ask him, he asks you two in return." And Ma's own line is even simpler: "There's nobody that's not interesting." BEAT 3 (0:24-0:36) [shot: talking head] Think about that for someone who's been famous since he was seven years old. Seventy years of people wanting HIS attention, and his instinct is still to give attention away instead. BEAT 4 (0:36-0:48) His friend Stephen Colbert put it a different way: "His position is Olympian, his behavior is not." He runs community programs on tour stops, conversations about gun violence in Chicago, a farm dinner in West Virginia, wherever the tour lands. Not because it's good PR. Because he actually wants to know the people in front of him. BEAT 5 (0:48-0:58) [shot: talking head, slower] I think about this every time I catch myself performing "composer" instead of just being curious about the people actually in the room. CTA (0:58-1:05) Read the piece if you want the full season with him. Who's the musician whose OFF-stage behavior changed how you think about the job? Tell me below.
Caption
The most famous cellist alive spends interviews asking about you instead. New NYT profile on Yo-Yo Ma at 70 has a line from Obama that stuck with me: "For every question you ask him, he asks you two in return." Worth thinking about what we're actually modeling when people pay attention to us.
Hashtags
#YoYoMa #ClassicalMusic #ComposerLife
Source
NYT, "What if We Were All a Little More Like Yo-Yo Ma?" by Joshua Barone, Sept 1 2026: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/arts/music/yo-yo-ma-profile.html