"It’s not every day that you enter a concert hall 15 minutes early only to find the artist already on stage, chatting to the audience.

And, when the artist is the legendary cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, you can’t help but curse the snail’s-pace subway that prevented you from arriving even earlier.

As the Roy Thomson Hall gradually filled, Ma continued answering questions from the floor: ‘Welcome. Ask me anything’ read the display on two screens above the stage. Audience members obliged with questions ranging from emotional engagement with music to a young lad’s concerns about his lack of motivation when practising the violin.

“You have a magic button inside you,” a beaming Ma responded, “which turns something you think you should do to something you want to do. Only you can flick that switch and make the instrument your friend.”

I doubt the young aspiring musician would miss his next practice slot. Midway through his next response, Ma was handed his cello, and the lights were dimmed to signal the official start of the Evening with Yo-Yo Ma: Reflections in Words and Music."

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[Continue at Ludwig Van]