LOS ANGELES : Cellist Yo-Yo Ma Bows Out of Concerts Due to Illness

Yo-Yo Ma will not perform at four sold-out concerts beginning tonight at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The cellist has pneumonia and pleurisy, according to a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Instead of Ma, 25-year-old Chinese pianist Xiang-Dong Kong will serve as soloist in an altered program, including Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto.

Kong, who lives in Orange County, had been scheduled to make his Philharmonic debut Aug. 3 at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1986, he was the youngest prizewinner ever in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition.

The remainder of this weekend’s orchestral program, to be led by guest conductor Andrew Davis, will be, as scheduled, Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture and Symphony No. 5 (“Reformation”).