The Music of Strangers Page #4

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smaller and smaller.

That leads me back to China,

to rediscovering "What

is China's music?"

None of us can prove

anything about how...

much of the past

we carry with us.

I had thought that this

is, in Yo-Yo's mind...

his investigations

into his own past.

My father was born in 1911...

and he left China when he was about

25 to go to France to study.

And he wrote about that

fusion of what Chinese music

might sound like with French

techniques of composing.

Isn't that strange that,

so many years later...

the apple did not fall

that far from the tree?

Yo-Yo!

Yo-Yo.

Yo-Yo.

That's Yo-Yo, the dog.

Okay, come on in.

Home is this for me.

Every birthday of mine

since I was first,

my first birthday, was celebrated

here or in this house.

And for us to keep that

cultural identity alive

is probably one of the

most defining aspects

of what it means

to be a Galician.

During the history of time,

many different

civilizations have tried

to take away that identity...

like Roman Empire.

...they will lose

their memories.

Their... They couldn't

remember anything.

That's the legend

behind the piece

I wrote for my mother,

who maybe like four years ago

started to... to...

lose her memory.

We want to protect

what we have...

our culture, our music...

and we want our children to

keep the language alive.

And in order to be alive,

you have to let it grow.

Lots of people, when they

think of the Middle East,

they think of divisions,

like Sunni, Shia,

Christian, Armenian,

Kurds, Turks.

I don't think of the

Middle East this way.

You know, I think

it's an ancient place

where all the cultures happen

to exist at some point.

- How much are these?

- Excuse.

That's okay, that's okay. I'm

just going to play this, yeah?

Yeah?

When we were in Juilliard,

Kinan and I, Kinan

was graduating.

He made this very moving,

beautiful piece.

And I told Kinan, I said,

"I think I can contribute

something in this piece."

We think very similarly,

even though he's Muslim Arab

and I'm Armenian Christian.

It's... it's not necessary.

We grew up without even knowing

who's Christian, who's

Muslim in Syria.

It was not a necessary thing.

So this place was...

used to be a church,

and then it turned

out to be a mosque.

And then here it is,

now it's a museum.

No, "This is so beautiful,

I don't want to cover it."

That's the power of art,

one crosses any... limitation.

It's the "F" word.

Fa... fun.

Whoa.

Apparently I thought

my father worked

at the airport when

I was a child,

because that's where

he was always going,

and so it was a bit of

a massive revelation

that he was not, in fact...

employed by Logan Airport.

But he knows what's important,

and I think he sees

his obligation,

particularly when he

goes to smaller towns,

as beginning the moment he lands

and lasting the entire

time he's on the ground.

He's there to spread

his sense of the world

in every conversation

and interaction

that takes place.

Wow.

Good evening.

I'm Yo-Yo Ma,

and this is my brother,

Kayhan Kalhor.

Now, we were twins,

but we were separated at birth.

But we found out

from DNA analysis...

that even our life choices...

are the same. Almost, yeah.

Everybody is afraid of going

somewhere they

haven't gone before.

But you build enough

trust within a group,

and sometimes you can

turn fear into joy.

Woo!

A lot of us in our own careers

have developed in

different directions.

We have our own bands,

or we have our own

work here and there,

but this is the one place where

you can come together...

and play music that you... that

you don't get to play otherwise.

That tells people like me,

it's okay to be doing

what I'm doing.

Ah.

Music is their whole life,

and they told me they're

already 11th generation.

So I asked them, "What

about 12th generation?

Is there any 12th, 13th?"

They look at me.

There's no answer.

So that... to me,

really emotional.

I don't know who

writes the scripts

for different revolutions, but

they all look the same...

...and they affect people's

life in the same way.

Cultural Revolution is

the darkest history

time period of China.

And for artist, there

is no creation.

The party tell you what to do.

I question the role of art.

I question my role, like,

"What am I doing?"

What is my role in comparison

to somebody who's on the ground,

peacefully demonstrating

at the risk of being

shot, you know?

If you ask me, "Do you

want to go home?"

Of course, I want to

do... I want to go home,

but in what circumstances

would I go?

We humans are...

we have a tendency to

control everything...

the earth, animals, you know,

even the humans around us.

It's endless.

Later on, when the

Iran-Iraq war started,

it was a very, very

difficult period.

I lost two of my friends.

I lost my best friend.

And later on... a

missile hit our house.

I lost all of my family,

my parents and my brother.

I mean, you see how the

world is reacting to Syria.

Nobody gives a f***,

if I can use the real language.

It's like...

Just three days ago,

people die of cold.

I mean, as simple as that.

I mean, the fact that they

tried to cut the aid for...

for the refugees, because

it's too expensive.

F***.

You know, it's just people

are not... are not bothered.

We are not our

political identities.

Nobody remembers who was the

king when Beethoven lived.

But culture stays,

language stays as a

part of culture,

music stays as part of culture.

The arts is more about opening

up yourself to possibility.

Possibility links to hope.

We all need hope.

Hey, Yo-Yo. Hi, Fred.

So glad to see you.

Nice to see you.

Thank you. When you play,

I'm sure you have a lot

of different feelings.

And as you played as a child,

did you ever play happy

things or sad things

or angry things, just

'cause you wanted to?

Oh, sure. One of my favorite

was "The Swan," which is...

And you can imagine the swan...

right?

You look at anybody's life,

you could find tragedy.

Nobody escapes either the great

things or horrible things.

That's the space between

life and death.

How do you deal with

the fears and doubts?

Do you dare go there?

Can you put all of

yourself behind something

and be absolutely authentic in doing

it to the best of your ability?

All right then.

This is the first time that I tried

to smuggle flutes into somewhere.

It feels like smuggling

flutes, actually...

but it's smuggling

for a good cause.

Of course it's emotional, yeah.

It's just simply emotional.

I'm going to teach...

Syrian children who have been...

they left their homes by force.

I was like them when I was kids.

Look, I didn't have...

a hope that I'm going to be

in New York doing my art.

And definitely, one or two of those

kids, they're going to make it.

So if we can inspire them and

can help them to do this,

they're going to just

continue this... this circle.

It's one of those moments

again in your life, you know?

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