He was born on October 7, 1955, in Paris, France. He is a songwriter and cellist and is of Chinese descent. He was a child prodigy and attended Juilliard for his formal training. He attended Harvard University and graduated in 1976 with a Liberal Arts degree. Mr. Ma is married and has two children (YoY o Ma) He continued to excel at the cello throughout his adult life. He has produced more the 100 albums and has won more than 18 Grammy awards. He was also awarded the national medal of arts in 2001 as well as being named a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. (biography.com) He owns and plays primarily on two cellos. The famous Stradivari cello named Davidov made in 1712 and a Montagnana cello from Venice that was made in …show more content…
In the early history of the cello there were not many solo pieces written for the cello until the later part of the 1600s. Any solo pieces before then were typically violin pieces transposed to be performed on the cello. The music piece would be typically adjusted by knocking the piece down an octave. Some famous composers to write beautiful pieces of music for the cello were Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mendelssohn composed four pieces of music for the cello and Beethoven composed five. Mozart did not compose any piece specifically with the cello in mind. Some wondered if Mozart did not like the cello. Most composers composed on commission so it is believed that the lack of pieces from Mozart may have been because no one requested a cello piece.