Word: musicians
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...train to take her from Harvard Square to Mass General Hospital for her shift. As the seconds tick away, she realizes that she's humming quietly and tapping her feet to a nearby rhythm. She can't help but turn her head to catch a glance at the musician sitting on the bench several feet to her left. He plays a familiar Stevie Wonder love ballad, one she's heard on the radio from time to time during the morning show on "Lite" 106.7 FM. Soon, despite herself, she's actually singing along, and swaying to the beat...
...Yeah, well, some people don't look up, and I know that's life," explains the 20-year-old street musician from South Africa. "Every time I notice when I come down here, some people they pay attention. So, I mean, I can't really say that I feel bad or good. I feel good that I can play my music and try out my new songs. I really enjoy what I'm doing...
...this what it means to be an elite classical musician in the age of Clinton? One has a hard time picturing Mstislav Rostropovich pulling off his pants in front of reporters. Nor, for that matter, can one picture Pablo Casals recording albums with jazz singers or Texas fiddlers or Argentine tango musicians as Ma has done. Or either cellist initiating, as Ma has, an ambitious series of six hour-long films inspired by Bach's six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, involving collaborators as diverse as movie director Atom Egoyan, modern-dance choreographer Mark Morris, ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher...
...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, the back of limos, by the side of the road and, if he's lucky, at home...
...really wrong. I set myself the goal that I damn well better remember at the end of the year what I did, or otherwise I shouldn't be doing it." He shrugs off criticism of his experiments with "lesser" genres: "Where do these designations like 'You are a classical musician, you can't do this' come from? The way people think of classical music is probably 50 years old. When we think of German music today, we think it is heavy, deep and conservative. If you look at the time period in which this music was written...