A dear friend and I watched Yo-Yo Ma perform the solo cello a few weeks ago at the Hollywood Bowl. He walked onto stage alone, armed only with his 300 year old cello on a balmy Los Angeles evening.
He greeted an eager crowd and smiled a smile that only someone who knew the deep secrets of what he was about to play could smile. Then he played. He played, alright. He played 150 minutes straight with no intermission: 6 suites for Violoncello solo by Bach from memory.
My friend is classically trained, master on the violin and drums. I am a mere mortal with no serious musical training, only my two ears. Bach, I learned, is highly technical, common for anybody learning music to train on. Technical, meaning it requires mastery, dexterity, and coordination of fingers and timing. Difficult, to say the least.
Yo-Yo Ma played blindfolded, rarely looking down on his cello during the entire duration of his performance.
It was the most impressive display of musical mastery I have ever witnessed.
That same week, I went to Porter Robinson’s Second Sky festival at the Oakland Arena grounds. It was a curated musical event filled with Porter’s favorite artists and style.
Madeon’s 90 minute performance stood out that day amongst a lineup of 9 artists. More accurately, he blew my mind. I haven’t been able to stop listening to his music, even stalking his website for the next concert in the days following. Madeon is dubbed a child prodigy in the space. There’s a YouTube video of him playing an impressive mash-up, released when he was only 17 years old, amassing 60 million views.
Two artists in fine juxtaposition. One could have played the same instrument 200 years ago, the other could not even exist 20 years ago. One with gray hair, having grown up without regular access to the internet. The other grew up on the internet, becoming famous before he could drink legally.
From the extremists on either side, one might elicit a derisive response of “old school” or “boomer”, the other might hear “that’s computer music” or a snarky “he’s great at pressing buttons”.
Yo-Yo Ma’s technical expertise is easy to appreciate. There are only a handful of people in the world that can repeat what he did on that stage. But technology has lowered the barrier to entry, allowing geniuses like Madeon to blossom and share their creativity from a young age.
Whatever your response, it’s hard to deny the amount of hard work and genius required to generate the following that these two have, even if they seem a world apart. I am sure there are many others, but both elicited a strong emotional response from me in the span of a week.
What a wonderful time to witness the full range of human creativity in music.