Cellist Yo-Yo Ma Appears and Performs On NBC's Emmy Award-Winning Series The West Wing On Wednesday, December 13.

Entertainment Editors

NEW YORK--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Dec. 8, 2000

Ma Will Play An Excerpt From J.S. Bach's Unaccompanied 

Cello Suite In G Major, Featured On His Recent Sony Classical

Recording Inspired By Bach 

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma will appear as himself and perform on an episode of NBC's Emmy Award-winning drama series The West Wing, to be aired at 9 p.m. (EST) on Wednesday, December 13.

The show dramatizes day-to-day life in the White House during the administration of a fictional contemporary American president. Ma will play an excerpt from the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suite in G Major as the guest performer at a Congressional Christmas party at the White House, a performance which is woven into a dramatic development in the story.

Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites are works closely associated with Yo-Yo Ma, who has twice recorded all six of the suites for Sony Classical, most recently for his award-winning Inspired by Bach multimedia project. The performances are available as audio recordings (S2K 63203), as well as on home video.

"You can take your Pablo Casals, you can keep your Rostropovich, I say Yo-Yo Ma rules," one of the characters in The West Wing episode tells another. Ma's performance is seen and heard, and it also underscores a pivotal encounter between one of the president's aides, who had been wounded in an assassination attempt, and his therapist.

The West Wing won a total of nine Emmy Awards in September, including the award for Best Drama Series. Martin Sheen plays the fictional President Josiah Bartlett, whose administration includes characters played by Emmy winners Allison Janney and Richard Schiff, as well as Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, John Spencer, Dule Hill and Janel Moloney. The West Wing was created by Aaron Sorkin, and it is produced by Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme and John Wells.

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has figured prominently in Yo-Yo Ma's recent recordings for Sony Classical. In addition to his performances on Inspired by Bach, Ma plays a series of transcriptions of Bach melodies created for him by conductor Ton Koopman on the acclaimed recordings Simply Baroque (SK/ST 60680) and Simply Baroque II (SK 60681). Ma plays a Baroque cello for the first time on these recordings, which also include Boccherini cello concertos, and he is joined by Ton Koopman conducting the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.