Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a 19-time Grammy award winner who has recorded more than 100 albums and performed on concert stages throughout the world, will deliver the main address and receive an honorary degree at Dartmouth College’s 2019 commencement on June 9. (Jason Bell photograph)
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a 19-time Grammy award winner who has recorded more than 100 albums and performed on concert stages throughout the world, will deliver the main address and receive an honorary degree at Dartmouth College’s 2019 commencement on June 9. (Jason Bell photograph) Credit: Courtesy — Jason Bell

HANOVER — Cellist Yo-Yo Ma will be the main speaker at Dartmouth College’s commencement on June 9.

Dartmouth on Tuesday said the 19-time Grammy award winner’s work “strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Yo-Yo Ma back to Dartmouth. His presence on campus underscores our enduring commitment to the arts,” Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon said in a news release. “He joins a stellar group of honorary degree recipients who are all, in different ways, advancing our understanding of the world and improving our lives.”

Ma, who also will receive a doctor of arts honorary degree, twice previously has been a Montgomery Fellow on the Dartmouth campus, and last April he performed and delivered a lecture on “culture, understanding and survival.”

Other honorary degree recipients include baseball executive Sandy Alderson, a 1969 Dartmouth graduate; National Science Foundation director France Córdova; Rebecca Heller, the co-founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project and a 2005 Dartmouth graduate; environmental attorney Hilary Tompkins, a 1990 Dartmouth graduate; and architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, who designed the recently completed renovation for the Hood Museum of Art.