If the Pittsburgh Symphony’s national and international reputation is excellent, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s is unimpeachably spectacular. To this day, he’s one of few classical performers who still reliably sells out symphony halls, and Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall was no exception on Wednesday.

It’d be easy to imagine that the hype is overblown or even undeserved at this point. After all, Ma has been in the public eye for decades, and there are plenty of examples of classical “stars” aging past their prime, where their technical mastery begins to dip or the creativity and spark in their playing begins to fade.

Not so with Ma. Here’s why — it may sound reductionist, but through the abstraction of classical music, he manages to deliver each and every note in a conversational style that feels as th

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