Press Release

Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott Share First Track “Song Without Words” From Forthcoming Album Songs Of Comfort And Hope

YO-YO MA & KATHRYN STOTT

SHARE FIRST TRACK

“SONG WITHOUT WORDS”

FROM FORTHCOMING ALBUM

SONGS OF COMFORT AND HOPE

LISTEN HERE

A COLLECTION OF WELL-LOVED CLASSICS OFFERS

SOLACE AND ENCOURAGEMENT

ALBUM AVAILABLE DECEMBER 11 – PREORDER NOW

Yo-Yo Ma Comfort and Hope cover

(October 30 – Toronto, ON) Today, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott share their new recording of “Song Without Words” by Felix Mendelssohn, the first offering to be released from their forthcoming album, Songs of Comfort and Hope (Sony Classical), set for launch December 11, 2020 listen here. Available now for preorder, Songs of Comfort and Hope is inspired by the series of recorded-at-home musical offerings that Ma began sharing in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States. Throughout the spring and summer, Yo-Yo Ma’s #SongsofComfort grew from a self-shot video of Antonín Dvořák’s “Goin’ Home” into a worldwide effort that has reached more than 18 million people.

Ma and Stott mark the next chapter in the project with this new album, offering consolation and connection in the face of fear and isolation. The album includes 21 new recordings, which span modern arrangements of traditional folk tunes, canonical pop songs, jazz standards, and mainstays from the western classical repertoire. “Songs are little time capsules of emotions: they can contain long-lost dreams and desires, and feelings of great spirit, optimism, and unity,” Ma and Stott write of Songs of Comfort and Hope.

Songs bring a sense of community, identity, and purpose, crossing boundaries and binding us together in thanks, consolation, and encouragement. It had long been our wish to explore this medium further, but we could never have imagined that the catalyst would be a pandemic that fundamentally rearranged our ways of living. This is music that tells stories, that marks occasions private and public, that gives voice to celebrations, remembrances, and all of life’s mysteries. These are songs that pay tribute to musical champions of social justice — like Paul Robeson and Violeta Parra — and to the troubadours of our joy, imagination, and sorrow — like Francis Poulenc, Wu Tong, and Benjamin Britten.”

Among the new takes on old favorites are Pulitzer Prize® winner Caroline Shaw’s artful and eloquently arranged “Shenandoah”; Australian composer Harry Sdraulig’s “Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda”; pianist Stephen Hough’s lush arrangement of “Scarborough Fair”, and two-time Academy® Award-nominated icon Jorge Calandrelli’s re-imagining of a pair of songbook treasures: “We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, and Violeta Parra’s “Gracias a la Vida. See the full track list below.

Ma and Stott’s recording partnership began in 1985, and includes Soul of the Tango and Obrigado Brazil, each of which garnered a GRAMMY® Award for “Best Classical Crossover Album. Most recently, in 2015, they released the critically acclaimed Songs from the Arc of Life, of which NPR wrote, “Over those many years, they’ve developed a wonderfully warm and mutually responsive musical partnership that has blossomed in performances that are both generous and incisive.”

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott share the warmth of decades of music making again with Songs of Comfort and Hope, offering audiences new paths into treasured musical memories and a few notes of hope for a better future.

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, OKeh, Portrait and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.

CONNECT WITH THE ARTISTS

YO-YO MA

WEBSITE: http://www.yo-yoma.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/YoYoMa

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/yoyoma

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/yoyo_ma

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/YoYoMaVEVO

KATHRYN STOTT

WEBSITE: http://www.kathrynstott.com/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/kathystott

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/stott.kathryn

TRACKLISTING:

1.   Amazing Grace, Prelude

Traditional English

Arranged and produced by Graham Fitkin

2.   Ol’ Man River

from Showboat, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II

Arranged by Roderick Williams

3.     Shenandoah

Traditional American

Arranged By Caroline Shaw

4.   Goin’ Home

from Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”, Antonín Dvořák

Arranged by William Arms Fisher

5.   Jewish Song

from Jewish Life, No. 3

Ernest Bloch

6.   Zdes’ khorosho, Op. 21, No. 7

Sergei Rachmaninoff

7.   Moscow Nights

Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi and Mikhail Matusovsky

Arranged by Stephen Hough 

8.   Over the Rainbow

from “The Wizard of Oz,” Harold Arlen

Arranged by Tom Poster

9.   Rain Falling from the Roof

Wu Tong

10.  Song Without Words, Op. 109

Felix Mendelssohn

11.  Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda

Harry Sdraulig

12.  Scarborough Fair   

Traditional English

Arranged by Stephen Hough 

13.  Solveig’s Song

from Peer Gynt, Edvard Grieg

14.  Les Chemins de l’Amour       

Francis Poulenc

15.  Marietta’s Lied

from Die tote Stadt, Erich Wolfgang Korngold

16.  Thula Baba

Traditional Zulu lullaby

Arranged by Roderick Williams

17.  The Last Rose of Summer

Traditional Irish

Arranged by Benjamin Britten

18.  Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)

Traditional Irish

Arranged by Fritz Kreisler

19.  Gracias a la Vida

Violeta Parra

Arranged by Jorge Calandrelli

20.  We’ll Meet Again

Ross Parker and Hughie Charles

Arranged by Jorge Calandrelli

21.  Amazing Grace, Postlude

Traditional English

Arranged and produced by Graham Fitkin