A Conversation With Yo-Yo Ma

Purdue University President Mung Chiang and the Purdue Presidential Lecture Series present the renowned cellist, recording artist, and humanitarian leader Yo-Yo Ma in a special engagement moderated by PBS NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Brown. Through personal anecdotes, thoughtful inquiry, and musical interludes, Yo-Yo Ma explores how culture can help us all seek truth, build trust and act in service of one another. Powered by Purdue Convocations.

YO-YO MA

Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), the Polar Music Prize (2012), and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.

JEFFREY BROWN, PBS NEWSHOUR CORRESPONDENT 

Moderator

Jeffrey Brown, in a career spanning 30 years with PBS’s NewsHour, has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues around the nation and globe. He has profiled many of the world’s leading writers, musicians, actors, and artists, and led inquiry into the status of cultural heritage in the United States and abroad.  

PURDUE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT MUNG CHIANG 

“Arts connects and inspires. Purdue is a university in the fullest sense when we welcome distinguished artists to our campus,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said. “It is particularly exciting to announce the unique Presidential Lecture Series event with Yo-Yo Ma, a living legend in the world of music and humanity.”