World-class cellist Yo-Yo Ma brings Bach to Weill Hall

When Yo-Yo Ma made his first appearance at the Green Music Center two years ago, the recital program reflected the world-famous cellist’s reputation as a musical omnivore, providing a multicultural tour of Russian, German, French and South American works.

When Ma returns to Weill Hall in Rohnert Park at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the popular musician will bore into three of Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, works that he first recorded in 1983 as his career was on the rise but before he had become a superstar. In 1998, he recorded them again, as part of Sony Classical’s “Inspired by Bach,” a film collaboration with a wide range of artists that is now regarded as a crossover classic.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2010, Ma said he enjoys returning to the comfort and familiarity of the pieces he first learned during his teens, which provide him with a “musical home.”

“I may be playing the same pieces, but the way I’m thinking about them is different,” said the 59-year-old Ma. “In my 40s, I was exploring what else was going on in the neighborhood. In my 50s, I’m more interested in how young people think. Plus I’m trying to play the cello as well as I can. Between the measurable and the immeasurable things, that’s where I live.”

Ma’s recordings of the Bach suites follow his eminent predecessors, starting with the Spanish-Catalonian cellist Pablo Casals, who resurrected the suites at the turn of the 20th century and went on to record them in the 1930s. Hungarian-American cellist Janos Starker made a famous recoding in the mid-1960s, and Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich recorded the complete set in the 1990s.

“In the right hands, Bach’s six Suites for Solo Cello can be an ennobling, thoroughly rewarding experience,” Jim Svejda writes in “The Record Shelf Guide to Classical CDs and Audiocassettes. “In the wrong hands, they can be a crashing, unmitigated bore.”

Each of the six suites incorporates the standard dances of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue within a framework of six movements. Four of the six are written in the major mode, and the two minor-key works are regarded as among Bach’s most stirring creations. Ma will be creating a dramatic arc from the elegant elan of No. 1 to the tragic splendor of No. 5, culminating with the sunny, C-major warmth of No. 3.

These works should be in good hands with Ma, who is regarded as the foremost cellist of his generation, due to his musical trifecta of polished technique, singing tone and emotional depth. Although Ma is known for his interpretations of music from the 19th and 20th centuries, he has also recorded two albums, “Simply Baroque” (1999) and “Simply Baroque II” (2000), with Tan Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.

Now on the verge of turning 60, the cellist has started thinking of music with a new perspective. More than ever, he views music as a vehicle for understanding human behavior.

“I would say the sound part of it, what you hear, the measurable part of the sound, is equivalent to the tip of an iceberg, less than 10 percent of the whole mass,” he told the New York Times in 2013. “Of all the things I’m interested in, the thing I’m most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick, why people think the way they do, why they act the way they do. And I realized that music is such a great way to investigate why people do what they do.”

Over the years, Ma has recorded 90 albums and garnered 17 Grammy awards. Starting in 1989 with “The Japanese Album,” he launched a groundbreaking, cross-cultural journey that led to the founding in 2000 of The Silk Road Ensemble, a group that brings together innovative performers and composers from traditions around the world.

Over the past 20 years, Ma has crossed over in every direction, recording “Appalachia Waltz” with fiddler Mark O’Conner and bassist Edgar Meyer in 1996, the tango music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzola in 1997, “Obrigado Brazil” in 2003, the music of Italian composer Ennio Morricone in 2005 and “The Goat Rodeo Sessions” with mandolinist Chris Thile in 2011.

In recent years, the self-described “venture culturalist” has regularly appeared on the lecture circuit, speaking about the importance of the arts, education and the value of exploring the “edge effect.”

“The edge effect is where those of varied backgrounds come together in a zone of transition; a region of less structure, more diversity and more possibility,” he said in a speech at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center in 2013. “The edge is a time and place of transformation and movement.”

Living at the edge is something Ma experienced firsthand as a child. He was born in Paris to Chinese parents, then moved to New York when he was just 7 years old. It was a strange melting-pot experience that prodded the young musician to dig deeply into himself and his instrument.

“I had three sets of divergent points of view broadcasting in my ears,” he said to the New York Times in 2013. “It was very confusing. I needed to use my imagination to fill the gaps.”

Ma started cello lessons with his father at age 4 and went on to study cello with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School in New York. To expand his liberal arts education, he studied at Harvard University, graduating in 1976.

Widely loved for his humor and down-to-earth demeanor, Ma first performed in Sonoma County in October 1995 during a gala benefit that opened Jeffrey Kahane’s first season as the music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony.

During rehearsal, a woman in the viola section complained that it was too cold in the auditorium.

“Yo-Yo whipped off his fleece vest and sailed it back to her to wear,” recalled Shirley Chilcott, a former cellist with the symphony. “She did so.”

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com

IN CONCERT

What: Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performs Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, Nos. 1, 5 and 3

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Weill Hall, Green Music Center, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park

Tickets: Sold out

Information: gmc.sonoma.edu or 1-866-955-6040