“You playing is the best argument I’ve ever heard for the existence of God, because I don’t really believe a human alone can do this,” the late Steve Jobs said about Grammy-winning cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, after he played for the computer industry icon in his Silicon Valley home.
Jobs and Ma met in Aspen in 1981 at the Aspen Design Conference and maintained a close relationship. Now the author of the Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson, who is also the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, will be bringing Ma back to town as the 2013 Harman-Eisner Artist in Residence. The exclusive Artist in Residence Program which has featured art dignitaries such as Chuck Close and Julie Taymor, will bring Ma to the Aspen Ideas Festival in June where he will lead a session about arts and community mobilizations in the 21st century.
Ma is in perfect alignment with the programs goal this year of increasing citizen artist opportunitites to contribute to society. “As a musician, I’m trained to do two things at the same time: work toward a goal larger than myself and pay attention to the smallest possible detail,” Ma said in a press release. “I am delighted to join my good friend Damian Woetzel in catalyzing a national conversation about how artists practice citizenship, and can think of no better place to do that than the Aspen Ideas Festival.”
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