Tues. Dec. 31 

  Is Yo-Yo Ma the hardest working man in showbiz?

   We reached Ma, the world’s most acclaimed cellist, by phone in Atlanta in early January, where he was slated to perform a concert of Bach suites in Athens and then another Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony. This came not long after he was honored at the Kennedy Center Awards in Washington. Soon, Ma would be jetting back to Cambridge home to rehearse for two concerts Tuesday January 31 with Goat Rodeo Sessions at House of Blues.

    So, has he taken over the late James Brown’s sobriquet as that hardest-working man?

    “Oh no, not at all, not by a long shot,” says Ma, 56, with a laugh. “I feel I’m more like Waldo. I’m in a lot of different places. So, if you don’t live my life and are looking at it from the outside, it looks like I just keep flopping down in a lot of different places. It feels as if it has no rhyme or reason, but there are always lots of reasons.”

    The House of Blues concerts are with the bluegrass/classical quartet Ma formed last year with bassist Edgar Meyer, mandolin/banjo player Christ Thile (of Nickel Creek and the Punch Brothers) and fiddler Stuart Duncan. Crooked Still singer Aoife O'Donoovan will join them, as she did on last year's album, and sing two songs. (You'lll hear from her later in the piece.)  

 “As much as we think of this music as being tinged with bluegrass, it’s kind of genre-proof,” Ma said. “I like genre-proof music because you go deeply into something and you acquire all the necessary skills.”

    This sort of cross-cultural music exploration – going beyond the Western classical tradition – is something Ma has been doing for years with his Silk Road Ensemble.

     “When I was five I thought to myself my goal in life is I just want to understand things,” Ma said. “Because there were just so many things I didn’t understand and probably because of my background. I was born in France of Chinese parents who moved to America when I was seven. People would say different things that didn’t make sense, so I think I’ve spent my whole life wanting to listen to people and trying to make sense.”

    Some musicians who dip their toe into exotic music and come up with something new but “authentic” are accused of cultural tourism. 

   “I think cultural tourism is someone looking through the window at something,” Ma said. “I think for me entering into anything is incredibly simple and basic. It just means you have to have someone invite you in and walk through the door. You’re not a tourist, you’re a guest.  What we try to do in any form of culture, once you go on the inside is to share it with love.”

     What excites Ma most is the quest. “I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music,” he said, “let alone anything else, but I comfort myself with the fact that there’s so much left to discover. I’ve accepted my weakness as a given: I don’t know everything. Therefore, I’m going to be surprised all my life with discovering things.”

  Is there a connective tissue between all of the hybrid forms of music he performs?

   “Exactly,” he says. “As with so many things that I do, all these really wonderful relationships, the longest term friendship I have is with Edgar and I’ve known him for 20 years. And somehow between Edgar and Chris and Stuart, it’s a 20-year relationship, except for the four of us to get together was the first time last year. Edgar was the architect of this whole thing and I mean architect whereas he’s a little bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. We bring something to it. Edgar and Chris, the way they would describe it is ‘OK. we have plucked instruments and bowed instruments and a lot of what Edgar does with Chris is to do plucked instruments so they needed two bowed instruments as well, the violin and the cello.’ Stuart, for example, coming from a bluegrass background is such a consummate musician and even when he plays a chop it’s different every time, it’s just the inventiveness is amazing and Chris Stile, I think of him as someone who hears no interruption between a thought that he has and having it immediately come out (in music).”

    What part does improvisation play?

     “I don’t do much improve,” says Ma. “I do with the Silk Road Ensemble when necessary, but I think that’s one of the things if I were to do anything in this group, it would emerge when we play a lot together. But certainly for what we do now, I think it would be kind of ludicrous for me to do something at the moment.

   There was a quote from one you Goats saying a bluegrass fan would consider this classical music and a classical fan would consider it bluegrass.

    “Yes. Exactly,” says Ma, “but showing deep respect for each.”

    One thing I always wondered and thought Ma would know is the difference between a fiddler and violinist – the Goats employ a fiddler; orchestras have violinists but …

   “I really don’t know,” says Ma. “I think it has something to do with how you’re trained. A fiddler often would start out by not reading music and on the other hand a violinist could start suzuki style and not read music also, but could also learn to read music. I think these are very broad and not particularly accurately defined. On the other hand, Isaac Stern used to call himself a fiddler. So, it’s not , it’s hard to say. That’s why I like genre-proof music because it’s not about … you go deeply into something you acquire all the necessary skills.”

    Do you feel you have to immerse yourself in the cultural background of a music to play it right?

     “I think it’s a really good question, “ Ma says. “ I think whatever adds to your understanding is always good. It’s easy in society that people talk about we’re living in a world full of information, but what we need to do is constantly turn that giant bit of information into knowledge and I would venture to say that after that you want to turn it into love,  Knowledge in politics could be just power acquisition - I know stuff you don’t know. But what we try to do in any form of culture, once you go on the inside is to share it with love. It’s not a supremacy kind of thing, it’s more like ‘Wow, pointing to bits of wonder.’”

    Has Ma ever been to the House of Blues?
    “I have nt been then,” he says, “but I’m really excited. People have said this is absolutely the right venue. I’m really excited about that part. “

   The early show will be simulcast to over 500 theaters across the country. Does it place restrictions on what the Goats can do?

    “What’s funny is I love the capacity of the House of Blues, the intimacy,” says Ma, “because that’s for me the favorite part of performing, to have this multi-sensory ability to absorb what is there, the feel of the crowd, the vibrations of the music, the visual sight , all your senses are engaged. So what I love about the simulcast aspect is that space is going to be shared visually and aurally in other intimate spaces and that I think it amazing. I remember Isaac Stern saying years ago, he wished he could do that and get Horovitz to play a recital from Carnegie Hall and hundreds of theaters around the country would be able to hear that close up and personal.. What he was envisioning is happening.

     “The thing we’re going to try to do is succeed in engaging , so there’s the sense of going beyond the screen both beyond the stage audience divide and hopefully the venue and the filming of it, will lend itself to create that sense of intimacy.  As Peter Sellars says, ‘Television is the world’s living room’ and in that sense, hopefully we are welcomed guests in people’s communities.”

    Ma was recently honored at the Kennedy Center and his music was played by a variety of ensembles, in a dazzling musical collage. Ma could be spotted beaming in the balcony. What was he thinking then? And what are his thoughts a couple of weeks after that?

     “I think it was such a big moment it takes  a long time for it to sink in. In the moment, you’re awestruck by the people that are there and the beauty of celebration, celebrating not just the immense talent of the honorees and it’s funny, every single person when they said anything they referred to their colleagues and the support from parents and teachers and certainly my family … We’re honoring expressivity and for my portion of it it was amazing to see so many of my friends from different parts of my life all come together on one stage, doing something together, that just blew me away.”

   You’re like Tom Sawyer, getting to watch your own funeral.

    “Exactly.”

We later got on the phone  with Aoife O’Donovan, the Crooked Still singer who will join the Goats Tuesday for a couple of songs. Certainly, O’Donovan, who grew up here, has been to the House of Blues either as a fan or player?

   “No,” she said, “ I’ve never been  in that building in my life. It’s so weird. I grew up in Boston, a mile away and went to school at NEC around the corner from that. I’m really excited.  I think it’s gonna be a really cool show.”

  Her involvement?  “I’m a member of Crooked Still and the extended music scene. the whole music community surrounding the bluegrass set and old time and Americana going on in Boston and nationally. I’d known three of the four members of the Goat Rodeo Sessions over the years, especially  Chris Stile who’s a good friend from living in new York and being buddies with the Punch Brothers. I think the idea to have me come aboard, they’d talked about having vocals and Edgar suggested to Chris that Chris and I do some duet singing on the record and Chris and I got together over drinks and brought it up to me and I jumped on the opportunity. It’s a really fun way to spend my time, to say the least.”

   Does it feel like a radical genre shift for O’Donovan?

    “It’s certainly an extension,” she says. “We played a tour in October. It felt very familiar to me, a really simple melody made totally full and given new life by the instrumentation and by the level of playing. All the intricacies of what’s happening underneath this pentatonic melody.. It doesn’t feel like a genre shift as much as a digging deeper into the genre.”

(This is an expanded version of a story that ran in the Boston Herald, www.bostonherald.com on Thursday.)

The Goat Rodeo Sessions play Tuesday at 7:30 and 10 at House of Blues.

Tickets: $45-$250.

15 Lansdowne St.,  617-693-2583 www.houseofblues.com (The first show will be digitally simulcast by NCM Fathom in movie theaters around the country, eight in Massachusetts, including Regal Fenway Stadium 13 in Boston. www.fathomevents.com)