Ma began studying violin when he was very small. He also played the viola for a short while, then, at the age of four, he started the cello. He was a child prodigy and began performing to audiences at the age of five. When he was seven he performed for President John F. Kennedy . At the age of eight he appeared on American television in a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. By the time he was fifteen, Ma had graduated from Trinity School in New York and appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s 'Variations on a Rococo Theme".