YO-YO MA & FRIENDS
SHARE A COLLECTION OF NEW RECORDINGS
INSPIRED BY THE
‘OUR COMMON NATURE’ PODCAST
AVAILABLE NOW FROM SONY CLASSICAL
NEW VIDEO: ‘EARTH HYMN’ (LIVE FROM SNÆFELLSNES) – WATCH HERE
OUR COMMON NATURE, A NEW PODCAST SERIES PRODUCED BY WNYC, PREMIERES TODAY.
HOSTED BY ANA GONZÁLEZ, THE SERIES FOLLOWS YO-YO MA ON HIS JOURNEY TO CONNECT WITH NATURE ACROSS THE UNITED STATES – LISTEN TO TRAILER
(OCTOBER 8, 2025 – New York, NY) – Today, Sony Classical releases a collection of three new recordings from Yo-Yo Ma, works created with Viktor Orri Árnason, Eric Mingus, and Jennifer Kreisberg as part of ‘Our Common Nature,’ Yo-Yo Ma’s four-year journey in search of music and stories that celebrate our connection with the natural world. Released as a companion to the new podcast series of the same name, which premieres today, ‘Our Common Nature’ is a stirring call to imagine a future rooted in our shared humanity and a deeper connection to our planet.
“I worry we’ve forgotten that we’re part of nature, how endlessly we are connected to one another and to the planet,” said Yo-Yo Ma. “’Our Common Nature’ reminds us that culture — our songs, our stories, our ways of living in balance — keeps these connections alive and can reinvigorate our love for the earth.”
Accompanying today’s releases is a performance of Viktor Orri Árnason’s ‘Earth Hymn’,’ filmed live in the shadow of the Snæfellsnes glacier, featuring Yo-Yo Ma with a small choir singing words drawn from ancient Icelandic poetry — a plea to the world from the edge of a changing planet.
WATCH HERE: ‘EARTH HYMN’ (LIVE FROM SNÆFELLSNES)
‘Earth Hymn’ is from RITUAL, a large-scale performance conceived by director Arnbjörg María Danielsen, composer Viktor Orri Árnason, and Yo-Yo Ma, with text by Andri Snær Magnason and ancient Icelandic poets, which premiered at the 2024 Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik.
The ‘Our Common Nature’ music collection also includes a raw, intimate cello/vocal duet in Eric Mingus’ ‘The Mill (Grinds My Bones)’, which carries listeners into the complex family stories buried in the Great Smoky Mountains, and Yo-Yo Ma’s collaboration with Jennifer Kreisberg in her stirring ‘naká·yè·ʔr sihskę̀·nęʔ (may it be that you have peace)’ — a prayer for a future in which we live in balance with one another and nature.
‘Our Common Nature’ is an invitation to listen more deeply to the world around us, to the land and the people and the ties that bind us together.
OUR COMMON NATURE – MUSIC COLLECTION TRACKLIST:
- Earth Hymn (Live from Snæfellsnes)
- The Mill (Grinds My Bones)
- naká·yè·ʔr sihskę̀·nęʔ (may it be that you have peace)
Also launching today is the first episode of Our Common Nature, a new podcast series hosted by WNYC’s Ana González. The series follows Yo-Yo Ma’s journey in search of music and stories that celebrate our connection with the natural world and the people who inhabit it. New episodes air weekly through November 19. Subscribe to podcast here. For details on the podcast series and individual episodes, see below.
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Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.
Most recently, Yo-Yo began ‘Our Common Nature’, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. ‘Our Common Nature’ follows the Bach Project, a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society.
Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris, where he began studying the cello with his father at age four. When he was seven, he moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies before pursuing a liberal arts education.
Yo-Yo has recorded more than 120 albums, is the winner of 19 Grammy Awards, and has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration. He has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize. He has been a UN Messenger of Peace since 2006 and was recognized as one of TIME magazine’s ‘100 Most Influential People of 2020’.