Word: cd
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, involving collaborators as diverse as movie director Atom Egoyan, modern-dance choreographer Mark Morris, ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and landscape architect Julie Moir Messervy. The films, to be shown on PBS starting in early April (following last month's release on CD of Ma's new recordings of the suites on Sony Classical), are only fitfully successful--stunts, one could argue. But their very ambition, their willingness to court failure, ought to be prized in a classical-music world obsessed with dwindling audiences...
...first recording at the age of 22, Ma has released more than 50 albums, winning 12 Grammys in the process and enjoying a number of crossover hits, including Hush with vocalist Bobby McFerrin and Appalachia Waltz with bassist Edgar Meyer and violinist-fiddler Mark O'Connor (the latter CD has been a fixture on the classical charts for 76 weeks). But life as an elite musician has its dreary side. Ma has a grueling concert schedule that keeps him on the road roughly half the year. Ax's comments notwithstanding, Ma practices where he can--in hotels, airports, trains...
Whatever the merits of the six films that make up Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach, the two-CD sound-track album (Sony Classical), on which Ma plays the Bach cello suites without benefit of ice dancers, landscape artists or snappy one-liners from choreographer Mark Morris, is a major musical achievement. Ma's second take on the Bach suites is also a distinct improvement on the version he recorded at the age of 26 (which is still available on Sony). His playing has grown deeper and more forceful in recent years, and these warmly romantic performances faithfully reflect that...
...anyone who watches Falling Down Stairs, the film on the C-major suite, can see how enthusiastically the cellist responds to Morris' fanciful choreography and hear how some of that unfeigned delight has made its way into Ma's rhythmically light-footed performance. Whether on CD or videocassette, it is the best of all possible introductions to Yo-Yo Ma's newly revised version of the Gospel According to Johann Sebastian Bach...
Beautiful, happy and self-assured pop music is what the artist simply known as Rebekah starts to deliver on the album, Remember to Breathe. The first two tracks of the CD, "Hey Genius" and "Sin So Well," are confident, bold and matter-of-fact indictments of pretense and societal hang-ups concerning intellect and sex. Listening to these songs is a pleasure. The title track, "Remember to Breathe" ranks as the best song on the album. It may stand as one of the best twenty-something anthems...