WNYC Presents “OUR COMMON NATURE”
New podcast series follows world-renowned cellist YO-YO MA’s journey to connect with nature across the United States
Hosted by WNYC’s Ana González
Premieres Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Listen to the trailer here
(September 23, 2025 – New York, NY) – This fall, WNYC launches Our Common Nature, a new podcast series featuring cellist 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. Episode one premieres Wednesday, October 8, with new episodes airing weekly through November 19. A preview of the series is available here.
After a career inside concert halls and recording studios, Yo-Yo Ma had never spent much time in nature. That changed four years ago as he began travelling across the United States, inspired by the idea that our music, stories, and traditions — our culture — can remind us that we are part of nature and reunite us in pursuit of a common future. In Our Common Nature, host Ana González — who accompanied Yo-Yo on many of his travels — explores the sounds, stories, and communities they met that remind us that, in Yo-Yo’s words, “we are part of nature … to love each other is to love our planet.”
The seven-episode podcast series includes exclusive recordings of conversation and music-making with Yo-Yo, Ana, and the people they met, including a sunrise performance with Wabanaki musicians and former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in Maine, a concert with the Louisville Orchestra deep inside the world’s longest cave system in Kentucky, and a cello recital for humpback whales on a canoe off the big island of Hawaii. Yo-Yo and Ana join Eric Mingus (son of jazz legend Charles Mingus) on a trip to the Smoky Mountains as he rediscovers his family’s connection to Appalachia, and travel across West Virginia coal country with a third-generation miner. Communities across the United States, from North Carolina and Tennessee to Alaska and Hawaii, share how culture connects us to the Earth in the face of a rapidly changing planet.
Through music, personal narratives, and local histories, with rich ambient sounds of running water, mountain winds, melting glaciers, whale and birdsong, Our Common Nature affirms our connections to the natural world, our own humanity, and each other.
“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. “Ana’s storytelling 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.”
“It’s been a singular experience to work with Yo-Yo, who, by his very presence, brings people together. Our Common Nature is a record of some of the gatherings he’s convened and music he’s made with communities fighting for their homelands, preserving their cultures, processing grief, and singing songs of hope for our planet,” said Ana González. “These are voices and stories that represent our country and deserve to be heard.”
“WNYC is thrilled to join forces with Yo-Yo Ma and Ana González to create the companion podcast to Yo-Yo’s ongoing ‘Our Common Nature’ initiative,” said Emily Botein, Vice President, WNYC Studios. “The series showcases the best of public media: bringing local voices and storytelling that tug at your heart and tickle your brain to national audiences, and fostering greater connection and understanding across divides — geographic and otherwise. During this fractious time, Our Common Nature is a deeply human series that reminds us that nature is something that binds us together and belongs to all.”
Our Common Nature will be available wherever you get your podcasts. In November, special broadcasts of the series will air in New York on WNYC 93.9 FM and AM820 and the classical music station WQXR 105.9 FM, as well as on public radio stations across the country.
A collection of musical recordings from the Our Common Nature journey, featuring Yo-Yo Ma, Eric Mingus, Jennifer Kreisberg, and a group of Icelandic singers, will be released by Sony Classical on the same day as the podcast debut, October 8 — available wherever you listen to music.
EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS
“ACADIA: Yo-Yo Ma and the Wabanaki Play for the Dawn”
Ana opens the series with an introduction to Yo-Yo’s vision of music as a window to the infinitude of life, as the notes of Bach give way to leaves, birds, and sunlight. Yo-Yo visits Acadia National Park in Maine where Chris Newell, a drummer and member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, leads Yo-Yo and Wabanaki musicians in a musical performance that welcomes the dawn for the continent.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Lauren Stevens, and Chris Newell.
“KENTUCKY: Yo-Yo Ma and the Louisville Orchestra perform in Mammoth Cave”
A cave can hold secrets that the world above ground never hears. We meet Louisville Orchestra’s music director, Teddy Abrams, as he leads its musicians into the planet’s longest cave system, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, to premiere his original composition, Mammoth. This episode takes us deep into the cave, once one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, to hear music that unlocks centuries of stories preserved by its seemingly endless walls. At the center is Jerry Bransford, who brought the Bransford name back to Mammoth Cave 80 years after his family was removed from their jobs in the cave and their homes surrounding it.
Featuring original music composed by Teddy Abrams, performed by the Louisville Orchestra, Davóne Tines, and Yo-Yo Ma.
“THE SMOKIES: Mountains and Forgotten Family with Yo-Yo Ma”
The Smokies are home to some of America’s most treasured cultural traditions, born out of rich and layered histories. This episode tells two stories of people reclaiming their connections to the mountains and their ancestry. In Cherokee, NC, Lavita Hill, of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and Mary Crowe, of the Indigenous Environmental Network, are working to restore the Cherokee name of the tallest mountain in the range. On another side of the mountains, Eric Mingus, son of jazz legend Charles Mingus, goes on an unintentional genealogical journey that inspires a musical composition, which he performs with Yo-Yo in a long-forgotten cemetery for the enslaved — reconnecting Eric with a lineage he never thought he’d find.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Eric Mingus, Rhiannon Giddens, and Jarrett Wildcatt.
“THE SMOKIES: Mountains and Forgotten Family with Yo-Yo Ma”
The Smokies are home to some of America’s most treasured cultural traditions, born out of rich and layered histories. This episode tells two stories of people reclaiming their connections to the mountains and their ancestry. In Cherokee, NC, Lavita Hill, of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and Mary Crowe, of the Indigenous Environmental Network, are working to restore the Cherokee name of the tallest mountain in the range. On another side of the mountains, Eric Mingus, son of jazz legend Charles Mingus, goes on an unintentional genealogical journey that inspires a musical composition, which he performs with Yo-Yo in a long-forgotten cemetery for the enslaved — reconnecting Eric with a lineage he never thought he’d find.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Eric Mingus, Rhiannon Giddens, and Jarrett Wildcatt.
“ALASKA: Yo-Yo Ma and the Gwich’in Play for the Salmon”
Alaska is at the frontier of a changing planet, with disappearing salmon and dying glaciers and communities learning to navigate these losses. In this episode, Yo-Yo begins on stage in Fairbanks, Alaska, with drag queen/environmentalist Pattie Gonia and singer/songwriter Quinn Christopherson performing a climate anthem, and ends at the 2024 Gwich’in Gathering in Circle, Alaska, sharing how the Gwich’in Nation uses centuries-old tools of music and discussion to speak with one voice in the face of a changing planet.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Quinn Christopherson, and Pattie Gonia, poetry by Princess Daazhraii Johnson, and traditional music by members of the Gwich’in Nation.
“WEST VIRGINIA: Yo-Yo Ma and Coal”
West Virginia is too often seen by outsiders as a place defined simply by tragedy and coal. So, what keeps people tied to West Virginia? This episode begins with Yo-Yo eating lunch with coal miners and Kathy Mattea along the New River, singing songs that dig into histories of labor, family, and nostalgia. It then takes a road trip deep into coal country with third-generation coal miner Chris Saunders to explore how coal has both saved and threatened his life. Poet Crystal Good recites lines that channel rage into love for her home state. And we end with Yo-Yo and Ana floating down the New River with a group of high school students, experiencing the timeless beauty of Appalachia.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Dom Flemons, and Kathy Mattea, and poetry by Crystal Good.
“HAWAI‘I: Yo-Yo Ma on Moloka‘i”
On the southeast side of the Hawaiian island of Moloka‘i, Miki‘ala Pescaia explains the concept of mana to Ana and Yo-Yo through a ceremony in a grove of kukui trees said to hold the bones and energy of the great spiritual leader Lanikaula. Miki‘ala then takes us to the other side of Moloka‘i, to the peninsula of Kalaupapa, the site of a former government-mandated quarantine for patients of leprosy, known today as Hansen’s disease. We focus on the story of Bernard Punikai‘a, one of the more than 8,000 people sent to die at Kalaupapa. Bernard’s friend Anwei Skinsnes Law tells the story of how Bernard found freedom, music, and dignity in a place surrounded by death.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma and Bernard Punikai‘a.
“HAWAI‘I: Yo-Yo Ma and the Whales”
Yo-Yo has long dreamed of using his cello to communicate with whales. In Hawai‘i, he gets a chance. With help from the Polynesian Voyaging Society and hula master Snowbird Bento, Yo-Yo first learns about the ancient art of Hawaiian chanting, which pierces space and time with the singers’ intentions. Ana and Yo-Yo board the legendary canoe hōkūleʻa with local sailors, marine biologists, and musicians to play cello for the whales through the hull of the ship, all in the red glow of the active eruption of the volcano Mauna Loa. The sun sets on the series with a big Hawaiian singalong, celebrating our connections to each other, the planet, and the infinitude of life.
Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma and Snowbird Bento.
Our Common Nature is a Sound Postings project, with support from Emerson Collective and Tambourine Philanthropies.
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.”
Ana González
Ana González is the Senior Producer of Terrestrials, a kids podcast from Radiolab and WNYC. Previously, she was the producer for Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, a co-production of WNYC and the History Channel, which won a 2024 Peabody Award for Podcast & Radio. Ana got her start as the producer and host of Mosaic, a show about immigrant experiences from Rhode Island Public Radio and teaching middle and high school-aged kids how to make podcasts with WHYY. Ana graduated from Brown University with a degree in jazz studies, which guides her ear for rhythm, voice, and magic.
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