World Renowned Cellist Yo-Yo Ma Visited Dr. Bauer's Class

On April 5, Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble visited “Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalaya” (ANTH 32). The musicians improvised on a boat song of Bengali extraction and discussed how musical cultures blend and inform each other. Like the commodities that were traded on the Silk Road, Yo-Yo Ma explained how musical ideas also spread, with the example of a Bedouin dance tune that migrated from Morocco to Europe in the 15th century, eventually becoming a wildly popular dance – the Serabande – in the French courts, until a composer in Saxony took up the form and reinvented it once again; the world renown cellist then thrilled the class by playing the fourth movement of Bach’s Cello Suite #1.

As part of the course’s theme of experiential learning, Dr. Bauer will take a group of students to NYC at the end of spring term '18 to immerse in the immigrant experience for communities from the Nepal Himalaya.