Yo Yo Ma

Nonesuch Records releases an album of Bach works recorded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile, and bassist Edgar Meyer, Bach Trios, on April 7, 2017. The album comprises works by J.S. Bach originally written for keyboard instruments, plus one sonata for viola da gamba. In 2011, Ma, Thile, and Meyer—along with Stuart Duncan—collaborated on The Goat Rodeo Sessions, which won two Grammy Awards.

Traditional Vietnamese songs arranged by the Grammy awarded Silkroad Ensemble from the PBS film The ""Vietnam War: A Film By Ken Burns & Lynn Novick."

Yo-Yo Ma's new album "Notes for the Future" brings together extraordinary artists from five continents: across nine tracks, Ma joins Angélique Kidjo, Mashrou’ Leila, Tunde Olaniran, Jeremy Dutcher, Andrea Motis, ABAO, Lila Downs, and Marlon Williams to explore our fears and hopes, reminding us that the future is ours to shape, together.

Previn's Four Songs, using poems by Toni Morrison, continues the US song tradition established by Copland. They may not be strikingly original in style (they owe a debt to 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson), but they are very attractive, idiomatically American and movingly evocative of their texts. The set was written for Sylvia McNair, with a plangent cello obbligato for Yo-Yo Ma. McNair is outstanding here, her voice radiant but warm, soaring but secure.

Even when not composing music for film, John Williams tends to tie his music to fairly concrete images, as this collection of cello works attests. The inspiration for Heartwood, for example, came from a book containing photographs of trees. His Three Pieces for Solo Cello were attempts to reflect the African-American experience. In the liner notes of this CD, Williams describes the cello as groaning under the crack of the work-gang whip for Rosewood, dancing exuberantly in Pickin', and singing a lullaby in The Long Road North.