An Evening with Yo-Yo Ma

with special guests

Angélique Kidjo

Jeremy Dutcher

and

Christian Sands, keyboard
Magatte Sow, percussion

In June 2023, Yo-Yo Ma played the final notes of Bach’s Cello Suites in Nairobi. They marked the end of a five-year, six-continent journey, a search for answers to the questions that have in many ways defined his career: What is culture’s role in society? How can culture help us imagine and build a better future?

Now, in a special program combining music and conversation, Yo-Yo will be joined by two friends he met along the way, Angélique Kidjo and Jeremy Dutcher, visionary artists whose generosity and perspective have guided him toward hope. Performing together for the first time, Ma, Kidjo, and Dutcher call on us to contemplate the great questions of life and art: What has brought us here? And where will we choose to go next?

Yo-Yo Ma	Angélique Kidjo
Jeremy Dutcher

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is a testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. He began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Among his many roles, he is a United Nations Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, a member
of the board of Nia Tero and the founder of the global music collective Silkroad.

His discography of more than 120 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) ranges from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize, the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Kennedy Center Honors. He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on President Biden’s inauguration.

Angélique Kidjo

Five-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo is one of the greatest artists in international music today, a creative force with sixteen albums to her name. Time Magazine has called her “Africa’s premier diva”, and named her one of the most influential people in the world for 2021; The BBC, Forbes Magazine, and The Guardian have all highlighted her importance to the people of the African
continent. She is the recipient of the 2015 Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the 2016 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award, the 2018 German Sustainability Award, the 2023 Vilcek Prize in Music, and the 2023 Polar Music Prize.

As a performer, her striking voice, stage presence, and fluency in multiple cultures and languages have won the respect of her peers and expanded her following across national borders. Kidjo has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America.

Angélique also advocates on behalf of children as a UNICEF and OXFAM Ambassador. She created her own charitable foundation, Batonga, dedicated to supporting the education of young girls in Africa.

Jeremy Dutcher

Jeremy Dutcher is a Two-Spirit song carrier, com- poser, activist, and ethnomusicologist from Tobique First Nation in Eastern Canada. He gained international acclaim for his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which earned him the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the 2019 JUNO Awards. His musical style blends the songs of his community with neoclassical, jazz, and pop influences, and has led him to collaborate with such iconic artists as Buffy Sainte-Marie and Yo-Yo Ma. Dutcher’s work has taken him to the world’s great concert halls, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and the judges’ table of Canada’s Drag Race.

Attendance at all events is subject to the Festival security policy.