Yo-Yo Ma & the CSO

About This Event

One of classical music's biggest living names returns to play the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1, a piece closely associated with his decades-long career. Subscriber priority access has already sold out, and resale is running well above face value — a genuine hot ticket, not just a name-recognition draw.

Ma started cello lessons with his own father at age four and gave his first public recital at five. By seven, not long after his family emigrated from Paris to the U.S., he was already famous enough that Pablo Casals — one of the most legendary cellists of the 20th century — personally asked Leonard Bernstein to get him in front of President Kennedy. Ma played the whole piece from memory at the White House in November 1962, a duet with his older sister, with Bernstein introducing him on camera. He was auditioning for Juilliard by age nine.

Worth knowing: subscriber priority access has already sold out for this one, and resale prices are running well above face value — check cso.org directly rather than assuming a normal on-sale window is still open.