I’d come to see the 53-year-old musician in action, on a recent evening in Manhattan at Columbia Teachers College.

There was no symphony orchestra to accompany him. He shared the stage with New York City schools chancellor Joel I. Klein, a storyteller and a British scholar. Ma performed for about three minutes of the 90-minute program -- “Sarabande” from a Bach cello suite.

 

The star cellist is an ardent champion of what he likes to call “passion-driven” education -- musical and otherwise.

 

For the most part, Ma’s 600-strong audience came from the trenches of the New York City public schools. The session kicked off a novel, two-year collaboration between the city’s Department of Education and the Silk Road Project, the nonprofit musical and educational organization that Ma founded 10 years ago to bridge East and West.

 

Working closely with educators, the Silk Road Project plans to craft an interdisciplinary curriculum based on the study of the eponymous ancient East-West trade route where ideas, cultures and goods freely mingled. The American Museum of Natural History and the Manhattan School of Music will also participate in the program.

 

The Silk Road program will target sixth graders in Manhattan because it’s a pivotal year. “One of the things I remember about sixth grade --and there’s not a lot I want to remember -- is that it’s very confusing,” Ma said. “You’re thinking about who you are, how you fit in the world. It’s tough on the parents, it’s tough on the kids.”

 

Teacher’s College held a workshop earlier that same day for 150 sixth-grade teachers, who may start introducing aspects of the Silk Road curriculum into their classrooms this spring.

 

For more information: http://www.silkroadproject.org.

 

The article "Cellist Yo-Yo Ma Ponders Links Between Mummies, Gandhi, Jeans" was published on March 19th, 2009. in Bloomberg.com http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a7wmIz_RlDus&refer=muse