Reading - An amazing musician

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An amazing musician

My name is Fred Stevens, and I’m a musician. Actually, I’m a classical musician. I started playing the cello when I was six years old. Now I play with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. I love classical music, but I listen to a lot of other things, too. My mp3 player has more than 500 songs on it. I like rock, pop, and hip hop – all kinds of music. Last week I went to a Coldplay concert. They’re really fantastic. They’re one of my favorite bands. I have three of their albums.

My favorite classical musician is – you guessed it – Yo-Yo Ma. He’s probably the most famous cello player in the world, but he doesn’t only play the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. In 2003, Yo-Yo Ma made an album called Obrigado Brazil. In this album he mixed classical cello together with Brazilian music. It’s really amazing.

In 2011, he made an album called The Goat Rodeo Sessions. In this album, Yo-Yo Ma played his cello with American bluegrass musicians. Some people didn’t like this album. But many musicians loved it. Mixing classical music with other kinds of music is really interesting, I think.

You can also hear Yo-Yo Ma’s music in movies. He played music in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000, Master and Commander in 2003, and Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005. Sometimes I ask myself, “What kind of music does Yo-Yo Ma have on his mp3 player?” I don’t know. But I think he listens to all kinds of music – just like I do!