Yo-Yo Ma awarded RPS Gold Medal

American cellist Yo-Yo Ma has received the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Gold Medal. The medal, one of the highest honours within the classical sector, was presented by RPS chair Angela Dixon backstage at the Barbican, ahead of Yo-Yo Ma’s recital with long-time collaborator, pianist Kathryn Stott.

Yo-Yo Ma is only the third cellist in history to receive the medal, following Pablo Casals (1912) and Mstislav Rostropovich (1970). He was chosen by the Board and Council of the RPS to receive the Gold Medal in recognition of his ‘outstanding musicianship’, a choice approved by RPS Members. He joins a long legacy of former recipients from Brahms, Elgar and Henry Wood to, more recently, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Thomas Adès and Arvo Pärt. You can find a full list of former recipients here.

Presenting the award, Dixon said: ‘Yo-Yo, on behalf of audiences worldwide, the Board and Council of the Royal Philharmonic Society would like to thank you for the extraordinary musical gifts you have given us all… You set a gold standard in your musicianship. You are a generous collaborator and commissioner, lowering drawbridges to classical music, presenting it as a fresh, playful force. You’re an exemplar to your fellow musicians, demonstrating how music can be a passport to limitless horizons. This is evident across your extraordinary discography of more than a hundred albums, charting so much terrain.’

As well as founding global music collective Silkroad, Yo-Yo Ma’s parallel work as an advocate for humanity has seen him appointed as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, a member of the board of US-based nonprofit Nia Tero and has seen him become the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees. His most recent project, Our Common Nature, aims to celebrate the ways that nature can unite humanity and builds on his 2018 Bach Project, which saw him undertake a two-year, 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming.

Yo-Yo’s latest album Merci with pianist Kathryn Stott focuses on the music of Gabriel Fauré in the centenary year of his death.