Getting Democracy in Tune: Yo-Yo Ma on How the Arts Help Us Understand One Another
November 10, 2026
- Author
- Jay Pfeifer
Democracy, like music, takes practice. That was the idea running through an evening at Davidson College on Nov. 8, when cellist Yo-Yo Ma, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx ’93 and Davidson College President Doug Hicks ’90 made the case that the arts are not a luxury of civic life but one of its vital parts. Culture, they suggested, gives people a shared experience for examining their values, facing their flaws and imagining something better.
The program was presented by the D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good through The Grier Martin, Class of 1932, and Louise McMichael Martin Program on Arts and Public Life. It marked the third stop in a four-day listening tour for Ma and Foxx, who also chairs Davidson’s Board of Trustees, as they traveled across North Carolina. They visited Wilmington and Southern Pines before Davidson and headed to Asheville afterward to hear how communities are working through loss, division and recovery.
On stage, the conversation kept returning to what that listening revealed. Foxx described a country “being pulled away from each other” and pointed to a Wilmington gathering of descendants from both sides of the 1898 massacre as proof that common threads can still be found.
Ma spoke of going “where I might be needed. Not where I think I’m gonna succeed more, but really saying, ‘Where’s the need?’” He described his job, in music and in life, as helping others succeed: “When you make somebody else succeed, you get something back that’s actually more important.”
Hicks prompted Ma to describe how music sparks empathy and asked Foxx how he drew on empathy and moral imagination “in the arena” of political leadership. Both emphasized the need to get to know and see the humanity of those who appeared to have opposing views.
Student questions rounded out the conversation, turning to how young people find their purpose and choose creativity over productivity in an age of AI.
Foxx flashed back to his days on campus when he unspooled, from memory, a speech from the Elizabethan play, “Sir Thomas More.” The verses imagine More confronting a riotous mob, asking them to imagine themselves as exiled strangers.
The evening ended with music. Ma, with his 1733 Domenico Montagnana cello, which he calls “Petunia,” was joined by viola player and Music Professor Marcus Pyle. Pyle is also the Franco Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Martin Program on Arts and Public Life. Together, they played the Shaker song “Simple Gifts,” trading the melody and harmony.
Pyle then yielded the stage to Ma, who offered a piercing meditation on the hymn Amazing Grace.
Once-in-a-Lifetime Performance
Earlier in the day, Ma, Foxx and Hicks joined Pyle and 10 students for an intimate outdoor conversation right next to With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited. Under the last of the autumn leaves, Ma led students in a lively roundtable discussion. Each student had come prepared with a question to ask, but Ma had questions of his own.
At the end of their time, Ma moved to a single folding chair that had been placed between the sculpture’s bronze hands. There, he played a handful of songs, including Simple Gifts and Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
After his performance concluded, Ma stood and motioned to Silas Garrett ’27, an economics and political science major who is also the principal cellist of the Davidson College Symphony Orchestra. Ma passed Petunia to Garrett and invited him to play.
“I was definitely nervous,” Garrett said. “To be able to play in front of him is both a great privilege and very intimidating. But I thought about it very quickly, and came to the realization that it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I will almost surely never get that chance again.”
Garrett took his seat and steadied himself. When he first moved the bow across the strings, his eyes locked on Ma, who was standing a few feet away.
“I looked up because I was just curious to see his reaction,” he said, “and I just wanted to take in the moment.”
Muscle memory quickly took over and he played the Prélude from J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, a work he’s performed since middle school. It’s also the piece most closely associated with Ma.
“I knew I was going to meet him, so that song had been playing in my head for a couple of weeks.”
That night, Garrett called home to tell the story to his family, which happens to have two additional cellists. Garrett’s grandmother played, and he credits her with inspiring him to take it up. His brother, a high school senior, plays, too.
“He told me, ‘You peaked in life,’” Garrett said.
