Yo-Yo Ma on "Tavis Smiley" tonight

Grammy Award winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma will appear tonight, Dec. 9, on PBS' Tavis Smiley for a holiday performance and to discuss his 30-year career partnership with Sony Classical. Check your local listings for air times.

You can view a clip of Yo-Yo Ma here:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200912/20091208.html#

During the interview, Ma explains how he learned to maintain creativity in his music:
"Bobby McFerrin used to say to a lot of people, 'You know, you want to keep the child inside you.' So as you grow older, you have responsibilities, but you never want to lose the sense of play. Don't take yourself too seriously. You know? Don't be arrogant, because then you can't really play creatively with people. So I think being on a flat hierarchy, where it's one on one, it's not because you're older, or better, or whatever. And really trying to figure out who you're talking to, those things matter because then you keep improving."

Yo-Yo Ma is a critically-acclaimed cellist who has produced 15 Grammy Award winning albums throughout the course of his career. Ma was recently appointed to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities; he played at President Obama's inauguration in January 2010, the first instance of a classical quartet ever performing during a presidential inauguration. In total Ma has produced 88 albums recorded with some of the world's top musicians. Ma is strongly committed to educational programs that bring young people in touch with music and allow them to take part in its creation. As a result, he has created concert programs, such as the family series at Carnegie Hall, aimed at engaging entire families, and travels throughout the world to teach and mentor students. Ma studied music at the Julliard School of Music and earned a liberal arts degree from Harvard University in 1976. Recently, Ma released a box set, Yo-Yo Ma: 30 Years Outside the Box containing 90 albums: his 88 albums and two bonus discs. He currently lives in Belmond, MA with his wife, Jill Hornor, and their two children.