Yo-Yo Ma Movies

In this hour-long video, Mr. Rogers focuses on several segments of his PBS television show dealing with the importance of music in a child's life. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

The popular artist Yo Yo Ma is presented in a live concert performance at the renowned Tanglewood Music Festival. The personable cellist plays a wide range of music, from Bach and Brahms, to Beethoven and Gruber. He manages to entertain, inform, and delight his audience on a warm summer night in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide

This delightful presentation is illustrated with photographed graphics. The musical background is performed by Yo Yo Ma. ~ All Movie Guide

Three of the most celebrated artists in classical music -- violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Daniel Barenboim -- come together for a special recital in this performance video. Recorded during a 1995 performance with The Berlin Philharmonic, Beethoven: Triple Concerto and Choral Fantasy marks the first time this concert has been made available on home video. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Violin virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma has entertained audiences around the world with his extraordinary talents. He constantly explores the musical ideas of any composer, seeking to bring form to the piece. This is the fifth of six Inspired by Bach programs that blend the music against a story or a short film. In this video, Ma and Japanese Kabuki dancer Tamasaburo Bando explore ways to choreograph Kabuki movements with an unaccompanied violin section, both working in conjunction and isolation to find the musical thoughts of the piece and translating them into the delicate, ancient dance movements. The end result will leave the viewer amazed, enthralled, and delighted by these two artists. ~ Forrest Spencer, All Movie Guide

Ice skaters Torville and Dean explain to cellist Yo-Yo Ma how they translate the composer's notes into dance moves, and give a sample performance. This segment comes courtesy of Yo-Yo Ma's Inspired by Bach series, in which the musician teams up with contemporary artists from a variety of media to create new works based upon the composer's legendary works. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

This 53-minute documentary, one episode in the six-part Canadian TV series, Yo-Yo Ma: Inspired by Bach, attempts to link Johann Sebastian Bach's personal and professional life with the modern world. It is structured by director Patricia Rozema (I've Heard the Mermaids Singing) around the six movements of Bach's Suite No. 6 with cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing amid traffic on an island in a busy street, on a rooftop, and at other locations around Manhattan. Olympic gold medallists Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean execute a graceful ice-skating accompaniment to the music because Ma believes "they did for ice-skating what Bach did for cello." Bach biographical information is provided by Tom McCamus. This film was shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. Other episodes of this series featured a Bach-inspired garden designed by Julie Moir Messervy, dimensional digital recreations of Piranesi engravings, and Yo-Yo Ma collaborations with Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando, choreographer Mark Morris, and film director Atom Egoyan. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Quirky Canadian director Atom Egoyan helmed this, the only fictional entry in a series of six films, titled "Yo-Yo Ma Inspired Bach." The story centers on the world-renowned cellist and is a free-form series of unrelated connections between people. As the story begins, Ma is flying to Toronto via Canadian Airlines. Meanwhile, his limo driver Sammy Angelopoulos patiently waits for him at the Air Canada terminal. Their connection, needless to say, is going to be delayed. Real estate agent Sarah is trying to find someone to buy the home of the aged Dr. Kassovitz. The trouble is, the good doctor refuses to sell unless the buyer promises to keep the furniture and his art collection intact. Sarah has a bad cough and goes to see the attractive Dr. Angela France, an amateur cellist who is attending one of Ma's master classes. Dr. Kassovitz later gives Sarah tickets to Ma's concert while her sweetie Max pays Dr. France a visit himself. Max hates classical music, but Sammy, another of Dr. France's patrons adores it and hails Ma "an ambassador of God." In the midst of all the connection making, Ma can be heard playing Bach's Suite No. 4 for cello. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this inspiring documentary, a companion to Jane Goodall's memoir of the same name, the famed scientist and tireless environmental activist explores the connections between her work and her deep personal faith. From a restless childhood in England to the wilds of Africa and beyond, Goodall's life has taken a fascinating series of twists and turns, and here she draws upon that vast experience, calling people to defend and preserve the natural world in the name of God and humanity. Harrison Ford narrates, while Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma provide a rich, African-themed soundtrack. ~ Sarah Welsh, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker, philosopher and activist Godfrey Reggio completes the film trilogy he began with Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi in this visually striking examination of the impact of technology upon our culture. Naqoyqatsi is a word from the Hopi language which roughly translates as "war as a way of life" or "a life of killing each other," and in this film Reggio uses a intense barrage of images - most of which have been drawn from existing film footage and then altered using a variety of optical and digital techniques - to express his belief that technology is no longer at war with nature. Instead, we have allowed technology to become the "nature" in which we live, and as it stretches our physical and emotional environment in new and troubling directions, we have created for ourselves a world of greater chaos, violence, and confusion. As with his previous features in this trilogy, Naqoyqatsi features an original score by Philip Glass, featuring cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma; director Steven Soderbergh, a noted admirer of Reggio's first two films, served as executive producer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide