And nobody else would consider you myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Are thank you very much for coming here today. We are at the Kennedy Center. You played here many times, i assume . Yoyo um, once or twice. David well, im very honored to and be interviewing you, because and i am the chairman of the Kennedy Center, and we gave you the Kennedy Center honors at one point not too long ago, and you have also been the recipient of the president ial medal of freedom and every other award one can get. You are traveling around the country, around world all the time. What drives you at this point when you are already so successful . Yoyo i want my wife to approve of me. David that is hard to do sometimes. Yoyo yeah, that could be the ultimate prize. David well, that is important. Yoyo well, it think, what probably drives me is i want to be useful. So, i play the cello. And people like me to play. But maybe something you dont know, my great passion through playing the cello, through doing music, is the fact i am incredibly passionate about people. David well, i do know that, in in part, because when i first met you, you didnt want to shake hands. You like to hug. Yoyo i am a hugger. David you are a hugger. And so that shows you are passionate. When did you adopt the hugging technique . Did you always have that . Yoyo well, in france, you kiss, right . David oh. Yoyo hugging is just like its less, right . You kiss on both cheeks. In the united states, we shake hands. David ok. Yoyo so i did something kind of midatlanticish. David ok. So you adopted that, ok. It works out well, and i am always happy to be hugged by you. Yoyo ok, great. David you were born in france. You grew up there for a couple of years. Your native language was mandarin or chinese . Yoyo chinese. David and then french . Yoyo yeah. David so you didnt start speaking english . Yoyo no. Cant you tell . David well, its perfect. Yoyo some people say yes. David you have an older sister. And she was playing the violin, as i understand it. And so your father said, he was a music teacher, why dont you play the violin as well . So why did you not become a violinist . Yoyo well, first of all, my sister played much better than i did. And there is actually something i think in each person that is innate in terms of the kinds of sounds you like. You know, um, so for example, i somehow didnt think i could make a good sound on the violin, and, but, so i did not play any other instrument for a while until, i did not even here the sound of a double bass, but i saw one and i thought as a fouryearold, that is a big, big giant instrument. I want to play it. As fouryearolds might do. David ok, and your father yoyo so i started saying, please give me a double bass. I want to play it. There was no double bass i could play. The cello was the next best instrument. David so you started playing, and did you notice other children your age were out playing while you were practicing, and did that concern you . Yoyo well, i did not practice a lot. I had a father who was a very gifted teacher, and who thought a lot about things, and one of the things he thought about was efficient practicing. So for example, the first piece of music i played was this piece. Yoyo ok. Sounds a little like its kind of fast, lots of notes, but can we make it simpler . David well, i am sure you can. Yoyo no, but i am sure you can. Because what is the first note . It is this. Yoyo right . Yoyo and then the second note is this. Yoyo the third note is this. Yoyo and there is one fourth note. Yoyo ok, now this is the first four notes. Now lets listen to what happens. Yoyo four notes, and then the next four notes are yoyo wait a minute. I have heard those notes before. That was the third note. Yoyo and this was the second note, so basically if i know how to play the first four notes yoyo it is just a permutation of two of those notes. David well, you make it sound easy, but it is not that easy. Yoyo no, but you see, but anybody can do that. David well yoyo we will do that later. David lets go back to your situation. You go to new york. Your father is trying to talk his brother out of moving back to china. Yoyo yep. David but at that time your father said, gee, this might be a better place for my son to learn to play the cello. Yoyo what happened was that by total coincidence my sister, who played very well, violin, piano, and we did a small performance someplace in manhattan on our last stop. And this francoamerican lady who had founded an Elementary School in new york was looking for a music teacher, had heard about this person, dr. Ma, and said i am kind of interested. She came to the concert, and then decided on the spot to ask him to teach at her school. David i see. Yoyo and so had we not met this lady, we would have gone back to france and i would have, you know david you might be in private equity. Yoyo or i would be kissing you on both cheeks. David right. You were already fairly accomplished. Now because we are in the Kennedy Center yoyo it depends on how you define accomplished. David by almost any normal standards you were already well known. Because you had already met pablo casals, a man who many consider the greatest cellist of the first half of the 20th century. How did you meet pablo casals and what did he think of your playing as the young boy . Yoyo well, i think i was taken to him at age seven, and i have him, you know, writing something in my autograph book, and i played for him and he said, hmm, very good, and says, but you should always also go play baseball. Which is very interesting, because at that time he was in his upper 80s probably, and one of the things i remember his saying, maybe in that autobiography or in an interview, he said, you know, i think of myself as a human being first, a musician second, and a cellist third. And i thought that was really interesting because, you know, what, where do we place our identity . For guys often it is, what do you do . David right. Yoyo what is your profession . And, but the fact that he, you know, most people think of me as a cellist, and, but the human being part for casals was the most important thing, and that was something i always thought about. David and he recommended you to Leonard Bernstein for an event in washington. There has come to us this year a young man aged seven, bearing the name yoyo ma. [applause] now here is the cultural image for you to ponder as you listen a sevenyearold chinese cellist playing old french music for his new american compatriots. Welcome, yoyo ma and yeoucheng ma. [applause] david you performed at the age of seven in front of a live tv audience, but also president kennedy was there, so what was that like, fairly intimidating . Yoyo well, we were newly arrived people, immigrants, and, um, so, i think, for a seven year old, you know, did i know who president kennedy was . Probably not. Did i know he was an incredibly important person . Yes. And, ah, did i think about this for the rest of my life, about who this person was . Absolutely. David what about where you play . Yoyo live music is a communion. You dont have to be there. I dont have to be there. So if we are going to spend time together, lets make it count. I david so you are at juilliard, you are playing with other people, and then you decide ultimately go to college at harvard. Yoyo the fields i was most interested in were anthropology and archaeology, and you may ask why. David because they both start with an a and you like the as and him and or . Yoyo exactly, before getting to the bs, there was, you know, so clever. So the thing is, i was a very confused child because when you move, you know, everything, all the things that you hold to be will sort of solid and true visually, you know, emotionally often, but certainly in terms of habits and people, it all changes. You the rules are different. People say different things. And, so it was, you know, a lot will of our french friends could not understand why we would move to the united states. And and certainly a lot of americans thought, you know, this is the best country in the world. My parents kept telling me chinese culture, so incredibly important, so i was kind of befuddled because, you know, nobody can be, you know, not everybody can be right all the time, but anthropology gave me the way of studying values and cultures that, where slight shifts in values create the society and becomes expressive in their arts, as well as in all of their various expressions. David when you get into harvard you are you and realize there were a lot of smart people in there. Yoyo yeah. David were there many of them who said i want to be the leading cellist in the world . Were you unique . There werent that many cellists . Yoyo i dont even know that anybody, or myself included, wanted to be Something Like that. There was not, i mean, one thing that is interesting in music is that mastering an instrument is there to serve the purpose of expression, and the purpose of doing something in music is to find your voice, so in music, there is no such thing as this is the greatest anything, because it is about learning forever and finding the most concise way of expressing something as precisely as possible. David you began a career as a leading cellist and played for symphonies and on your own and so forth. As you have done that, you have now recorded, i think, 90 some albums, or maybe more than that . Yoyo i dont know. I dont keep track. David you have won 20 grammys, or Something Like that, so you have become a dominant figure in the Classical Music world, so does that put a lot of pressure on you to perform up to the highest standard every single time or can you ever relax a little bit . Yoyo you know the phrase, you are only good as your last performance. Right . And some of that is true because i think what you are talking about, and i dont want to belittle that, is external recognition in fact. Being a musician is internal development. It is sort of, you know, there is a tremendous emphasis you collect art. What makes one person that artist and nobody else, right . What makes you David Rubenstein and nobody else . What makes the sounds that i make only possible because of some wish to hear certain sounds a certain way . And i think that is what i spend my life on, and so winning awards is fabulous because it gives you more chances to do something that you might wish to do. You know, we are talking about external recognition versus internal satisfaction and fulfillment. They are Different Levels of pleasure, right . And i think the levels of deep fulfillment, and this is where, you know, the loose term im going to use, culture, comes along, because if you do things in arts and sciences, in culture, you are your wish is to build something that is strong enough, a building block, that someone else can build on top of. David today, you have a life of playing around the world, so how do you pick where to go every year . How far in advance is your schedule set . Yoyo i really dont mind what i play and where i play or, but i care how i play and who i play for and with. So, you know, i have kind of decided early on that whether i play, you know, in new york or jakarta or peoria or, doesnt matter, or in waco, texas, the most important thing i can do is to be totally present and totally engaged. There is nothing more important. And so, it is the focus that is there, and what that means is not being present in that im delivering a package and here is the package, but more like saying, ok if i play for a group of people, whether it is kindergartners or innercity school, white house, it is, you think about what you are trying to say, who you are saying it to, but the only thing that is important is that they remember something that will make them make, perform an action afterwards, so it is living material. David do you ever have that problem where youre thinking about one thing while you are playing a piece . Yoyo when i am playing, it is about absolute concentration. Yoyo nothing. David right, so you dont have any lapses . Yoyo i can sometimes feel mental lapses coming on. David do you ever forget the piece, forget the notes you play . You dont use music. Yoyo i do sometimes, and sometimes i dont. And what i tell people is if you want to memorize pieces, do that before you are 21 years old, because whatever you learn before 21, you remember forever. After you are 40, forget it. David its harder. What about where you play . Is there one music hall that you think that is better for acoustics . Yoyo so again, some people say this is the greatest hall, therefore it must be fantastic to play. Yes, that gives a proportionate, certain amount of pleasure, but the greater pleasure is the energy in the audience. Again, we are talking about who you are playing for. Music, live music, is a communion. You dont have to be there. I dont have to be there. So if we are going to spend time together, lets make it count, because if it does not count, if you forget what you did today tomorrow, and if i forget what i today tomorrow, what is the purpose of doing it . David you are seen as a symbol of the importance of culture. Yoyo i have to prove it to myself, let alone to the rest of society, that something is worthwhile, that my humanity or my playing three notes on the cello means something. David so you obviously made a decision in your career to do more than Classical Music. Yoyo music to me is expression of ideas, thoughts, and feelings, spatial structures in sound. I do not think of Classical Music as separate from the rest of the world. I would like to think that Classical Music is part of world music, which it is not thought of as world music, but i think that Classical Music is one of the best things the world has invented, and so to make that category different really upsets me. David right, but do you think we started as an idea, a group of musicians getting together and seeing what might happen. David the silk road ensemble and the silk road endeavor that you put together, could you explain what that was about, and why you did that, and why it is important to you . Yoyo well, i think it is a response to the kinds of questions you are asking me about Classical Music. Sort of, you know, wait a minute, how come i was asking those same questions of myself, and what i discovered in, you know, in beginning to find some answers that first of all, there are so many ways of expression through sound that have been, some are traditions that are thousands of years old, and there are many Classical Musics, and i thought that Classical Music in itself should actually be able to, because that is part of its tradition, to encompass a larger world. Yoyo one thing that music does, it connects peoples conscious and subconscious. People respond to music, you know, both emotionally, but also analytically, and so if you can combine both of those things in one form, you can go very deep into communicating content. David you are seen as a symbol of the importance of culture, and is this an important part of your life and your legacy . What you want to do is convince people that music and other kinds of artistic performances are very valuable for society . Yoyo well, it is back to the old question, who are people . Why do people do what they do . And so how do people learn . What is the meaning of why we live . You know, i think that is something i have to actually its not a theoretical thing for me, because if i have to play a performance on four hours sleep, and i have to leave my family, um, two thirds of the time that we have had children growing up, two thirds, and i know you travel like crazy, man, and you know, crazy, but a figure of speech. That you better have a good reason why you are doing that, so you get to that existential level. You have to care. You have to have the reasons of why it is important, and as i get older and as i observe what you are doing, you are, you get more and more involved in societal issues. You think about patriotism. You think about civilization. You think about civicness. Civitas. I think so too, but from my angle, from, you know, playing little notes, saying, why should that matter when other things are going on . I have to prove it to myself, let alone to the rest of society, that something is worthwhile, that my humanity or my playing three notes on the cello means something. David so i want to thank you for what you have done for the country and thank you for what you have done for the world in bringing people to know much more about the music we are hearing you perform. And i want to thank you for the Kennedy Center involvement. You have been an advisor to the Kennedy Center. You have been very helpful in many other ways. Yoyo thank you. Are you ready for your cello lesson . David i am. Yoyo thats it. Wow. Yoyo you did it. David great. Ok. Im ready. Thank you very much. Yoyo bravo. David thank you very much. That was great. Tom for five years now, the Massachusetts Institute of technology has been led by its president , rafael reif, a scientist with 13 patents. He fears washington politicians , President Trump included underestimate how close america , is to losing its global edge in science and technology. President reif in some areas, weve lost it. Tom we sat down with m. I. T. s 17th president and discussed the rising cost of education. President reif we are experimenting with different models to lower the cost of education to make it far more affordable. Tom the impact of the new gop tax plan on m. I. T. s 15 billion endowment