World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma ’76 and the Harvard University Choir are releasing a series of four video performances this month — a collaboration that began with a post-service conversation at the Memorial Church and culminated in a magical three-hour recording session last May.
The series of four short pieces blends the choir’s meditative voices with Ma’s soulful, masterful cello in a collaboration at Harvard’s Media Production Center, capturing an unforgettable musical moment.
“Yo-Yo is an amazing teacher and thinks about music in relation to its wider cultural context,” said Edward Jones, the Gund University Organist and Choirmaster. “He had very specific ideas about what French music meant versus Austro-German music, for example, and we had the choir discuss that and related topics. It was a great learning session and a kind of musical love fest for everyone, which was terrific.”
Yo-Yo Ma has a long-standing relationship with the Memorial Church, shaped in part by his years at Harvard and friendship with the late Rev. Professor Peter Gomes, who served as Pusey Minister from 1974 to 2011. In 2007, Ma joined fellow Harvard alumni Richard Kogan ’77 and Lynn Chang ’75 — together known as the “Harvard Trio” — to perform in honor of the church’s 75th anniversary. Over these many years, he has attended Sunday services at the Memorial Church and has long been an admirer of the Harvard University Choir.
The idea for the recording session actually came from Ma. After a Sunday service last spring, he approached Jones and assistant choir director David von Behren to propose a collaboration on a project.
“Yo-Yo is always very complimentary and very sweet about the choir and the music,” Jones said. “He came up to me and said, ‘I don’t want to presume, but would you ever think about maybe doing a CD together or some recording together?’ And I said, ‘Let me think about that — yes.’”
The recording session took place at Harvard’s Media Production Center’s new sound studio on a Saturday morning, about a week before the 2025 Commencement.
Ma arrived with his rare, historic cello and was warmly welcomed by choir members and MemChurch staff. Before rehearsal and recording, he took time to speak with students, asking about their hometowns and studies, and posing for group photos and selfies.
“It was a phenomenal experience,” Ma said. “Harvard is such a huge institution, and sometimes it gets separated into departments and disciplines and faculties, and the choir is quite a diverse representation of the University. The students do it for a passionate purpose; it’s not about career building or the hierarchy of society, it’s about the communality of being together.”
For choir members, many of whom were graduating in a few days, the recording session with Ma was a fitting capstone to their UChoir experience. Ma even unexpectedly attended Memorial Church services the day after the recording session to perform a piece with the choir.
“It was truly surreal working alongside and cracking jokes with this world-renowned performer,” said UChoir Junior Choir Secretary Lara Rui-Qi Tan ’27. “Yo-Yo Ma stretched us as a choir to fill our songs with both artistry and technique. Part of the beauty of UChoir is that we get to work through such a range of repertoire in such short periods of time, but Yo-Yo encouraged us to pump the brakes and appreciate each dynamic change or each chord progression within the songs.”
Directed by Jones, with piano accompaniment by von Behren, the session’s first release in the series is Franz Schubert’s Psalm 23; followed by “Ar Hyd y Nos,” a Welsh song; and Gabriel Fauré’s “Cantique de Jean Racine,” Op. 11 (1865); it concludes with “Fair Harvard.”
UChoir Senior Secretary Tara Guetzloe ’26 said the recording session was a unique experience.
“Meeting him truly made me realize how unique an artist he is; sensitive, humble, fearless, and above all, a lovely human being,” she said.
Over the next few months, the videos will be posted to the Memorial Church YouTube channel, a lasting reminder of this special moment of music-making with a world-renowned cellist who inspired the Harvard University Choir.
“Yo-Yo’s joy in making music was infectious for the choir — and for Ed and me as well,” said von Behren. “It was a tremendous opportunity for growth and reminded all of us why we make music — and that it truly is a universal language.”
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