Podcast Summary

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Episode Title: Yo Yo Ma Seeks 'Our Common Nature' Through Music
Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Ana Gonzalez (WNYC producer & host of "Our Common Nature")

Episode Overview

This episode explores the new podcast series "Our Common Nature," hosted by Ana Gonzalez and world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The series uses music as a bridge to connect humanity with the natural world, unfolding across diverse American landscapes and cultures. Through music-filled performances—many in unusual, profound settings like caves and streams—the show investigates how sound, history, and place shape our relationship to nature, human culture, and even pressing issues like climate change.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Guiding Principle of "Our Common Nature"

• Music as a Connector: Music is used as a tool to deepen the relationship between people and the natural world.

  • "If I had to essentialize it, it would be using music to connect with nature. And somehow Yo Yo Ma is involved. So that kind of complicates everything."
    — Ana Gonzalez (01:08)

• Yo-Yo Ma’s Role: Ma is not just a participating artist but the catalyst for the project, intentionally seeking cultural and human lessons in each musical encounter.

  • "He is the reason we, everyone came together. And then it was my job to show up with a microphone...[and] turn that into a series."
    — Ana Gonzalez (02:08)

2. Yo-Yo Ma’s Evolving Relationship with Nature

• Ma recognized that years of life as a touring cellist meant little true engagement with nature, inspiring this journey.

  • "He spent his whole life traveling and playing cello, mostly inside. He's a city guy...So this was his way of being like, I want to get outside."
    — Ana Gonzalez (02:38)

• The project aims to spotlight locations and cultures often overlooked by the classical music world.

3. The Intersection of Music, Nature, and Humanity

• Ana’s personal passion resonates throughout the project; she’s a jazz bassist married to a gardener, and her work with Terrestrials investigates Earth’s unique strangeness.
  • "I've just been cultivating all these separate passions in my life, and this was an experience where I could...bring all of them together."
    — Ana Gonzalez (03:33)

4. Memorable Episode Spotlights

a) Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

• Setting: The world’s longest cave system, with deep human and geological history.
  • "[Mammoth Cave] is the longest...cave system in the world, and it's in Kentucky...It's really hard to explain with words. You kind of have to listen to how cavernous the music is."
    — Ana Gonzalez (04:39)
• Performance: Teddy Abrams (composer), Devon Ty (vocalist), Louisville Orchestra; engaging Deep River, a spiritual about the Ohio River and emancipation.
  • "You hear both the reverberations from the cave walls, but you also hear this human element where Devon is a vessel for this song that represents so many different histories."
    — Ana Gonzalez (07:32)
• Notable Moment: The production challenges of performing with delicate instruments deep underground.
  • "The cave is 54 degrees Fahrenheit, day in, day out, which is cold for an instrument...It was a real operation every single day."
    — Ana Gonzalez (08:58)

b) Sunrise on the East Coast—Acadia, Maine

• Yo-Yo Ma collaborates with Wabanaki musicians (Chris Newell, Lauren Stevens) in musical traditions welcoming the dawn as a communal, spiritual act.
  • "As Wabanaki people...it was their duty...to greet the sun, but to pull the beams of light for the rest of the continent."
    — Ana Gonzalez (10:07)
• Memorable Quote:
  • "This was the first time I had ever heard our traditional music with a non traditional instrument. And to hear the welcome song played by yo yo on the cello, it resonated internally, like I could feel it in my body. It vibrated my soul."
    — Chris Newell (11:41)
• Advice on Listening:
  • "Take your AirPods out on your walks...Tune into your body and how it exists in the space...We are part of nature. There is no separation."
    — Ana Gonzalez (12:28)

c) Climate Change Reflections

• Indigenous voices and lived experience make the impacts of climate change unmistakably clear, particularly during a visit to Alaska.
  • "It was really through talking with people who are experiencing the changes in their homelands...nowhere clearer than Alaska...there's not a single salmon in this river, and there's not a single one."
    — Ana Gonzalez (13:54)
• The team sometimes hesitated to explicitly use the term "climate change," but firsthand accounts and environmental changes spoke for themselves.

5. Upcoming Episodes Preview

• Tonal and thematic diversity: From Mammoth Cave to the Smoky Mountains (with bassist Charles Mingus’s family legacy), to Hawaii’s humpback whales and traditional Polynesian canoes.
  • "You yo yo goes on a traditional Polynesian canoe called Hokule' a and plays for the humpback whales. It really travels the planet quite a bit."
    — Ana Gonzalez (15:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Music and Nature’s Abstract Bond:
  • "[The show's] thesis...would be using music to connect with nature...Yo Yo Ma is involved, so that complicates everything."
    — Ana Gonzalez (01:08)
• Yo-Yo Ma’s impetus:
  • "At a certain point...he had no relationship with nature...This was his way of being like, I want to get outside. I want to meet people. I want to go places that don't often get put under the spotlight, and I want to learn and become a better human being and musician from it."
    — Ana Gonzalez (02:38)
• Devon Ty on hearing the welcome song:
  • "This was the first time I had ever heard our traditional music with a non traditional instrument. And to hear the welcome song played by yo yo on the cello, it resonated internally, like I could feel it in my body. It vibrated my soul."
    — Chris Newell (11:41)
• Presence and Listening:
  • "Take your AirPods out on your walks...We are part of nature. There is no separation. Human beings are part of the earth. And so any noise that you make is part of the Earth's noise."
    — Ana Gonzalez (12:28)
• On Climate Change’s Lived Reality:
  • "If someone's saying, this is my experience, and I'm recording them and they're showing me, hey, there's no salmon in this river...How can I say, well, that's not climate change?"
    — Ana Gonzalez (13:54)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:09] Introduction to "Our Common Nature"
• [01:08] Podcast guiding principle & Yo-Yo Ma’s involvement
• [02:38] Ma’s realization about his relationship with nature
• [04:39] Mammoth Cave episode: history, setting, and music
• [07:32] The impact and logistics of performing in the cave
• [10:07] Welcoming the dawn with Wabanaki musicians in Acadia, Maine
• [11:41] Chris Newell on the emotional resonance of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello
• [12:28] On cultivating mindful listening in the natural world
• [13:54] Climate change’s presence in the podcast
• [15:18] Preview of upcoming episodes and cultural encounters

Conclusion

"Our Common Nature" is a sonically rich, emotionally resonant journey that uses music to highlight humanity's inseparable ties to nature. Through Yo-Yo Ma’s inspired collaborations and Ana Gonzalez’s nuanced storytelling, the podcast traverses caves, dawns, forests, and oceans to reveal how sound, place, and humanity are inextricably linked—a vital reminder in an age of profound cultural and environmental change.