I saw Yo-Yo Ma at the Kennedy Center!

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I'm not a classical music expert by any means, but I can certainly appreciate it. And I know who Yo-Yo Ma is! So months ago when I recived an email from the Washington Performing Arts selling tickets for his performance at the Kennedy Center, I immediately emailed my friend Jen (my go-to classical music friend, since she plays the piano) to invite her to come with me.

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I hadn't been in the Kennedy Center's concert hall probably since before the pandemic. It's such a beautiful space! While the show was sold out, there were many empty seats (including three next to me), so I wish I had looked on Craigslist to see if anyone was selling their tickets so I could have invited other friends. But perhaps people simply forgot! I never received a reminder email about the performance; good thing I wrote it down in my planner! 

Ma was performing in a trio alongside Emanuel Ax on the piano and Leonidas Kavakos on violin. The performance was in memory of Isaac Stern, a famous violinist (which I did not know until Jen told me). They started the show by playing the national anthem of Ukraine in honor of the violence happening there now, which I thought was very respectful and meaningful; people on the other side of the world are at war right now, and we had the privilege to be safe and sound watching a concert. 

Here's an actual video of their performance of the anthem:

The first full piece they played was Beethoven's "Pastorale" symphony, which is one of my favorites. It's the music in the unicorn scene in Disney's Fantasia! While the piece certainly sounds different when you only have three instruments instead of a full orchestra, it still was familiar and made me smile. How can you not when you're listening to music that makes you think of cherubs, baby unicorns, and sexy centaurs?

I couldn't find a full clip of the Disney piece, so here is the full symphony separated out into its five movements:

Movement 1

Movement 2

Movement 3

Movement 4

Movement 5

The trio also played Beethoven's "Gassenhauer" piano trio piece:

And the last piece they played was Beethoven's "Ghost" piano trio piece:

They played the third movement of Beethoven's piano trio in E-flat Major, Op. 70 No. 2 as the encore:

It wasn't that those other two pieces weren't good, it's just more fun to listen to music you know. Kind of like when you go to a rock concert and can sing along with the songs: it's just more fun when you know the music! They did play an encore piece that I wasn't familiar with. A little girl sitting behind us said, "Wait, they're going to play again?" and let out a very tired sigh. I was tired, too, I will admit, but I did not fall asleep! And the metro gods were on my side, and I made good time traveling home. I am so thankful that we can enjoy things like this again after two years of staying at home!

Read the full program notes here.