7 Year Old Cellist Prodigy Yo Yo Mas Debut Performance for President JFK, The Kennedy Center

Leonard Bernstein introduces 7yearold YoYo Ma and his 11yearold sister YeouCheng Ma to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower at An American Pageant of the Arts, on November 29, 1962. The purpose of the event was to raise funds for the National Cultural Center, begun under Eisenhower s administration and encouraged under Kennedy s. The prodigious duo performed the first movement of the Concertino No. 3 in A Major, by JeanBaptiste Breval. Two months after President Kennedy s assassination in November 1963, Congress passed and President Johnson signed into law legislation renaming the National Cultural Center as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy. Watch the full pageant with Bob Newhart, Harry Belafonte, Danny Kaye, Marian Anderson, Robert Frost, Maria Tallchief, and many more: Learn more about the Kennedy Center s history: Leonard Berns br, br,