Music Minute: Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Scott - Songs from the Arc of Life

Disclosure: I received complimentary products to facilitate this post. All opinions are my own.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott create a unique classical music experience with their new Sony Classical recording Songs from the Arc of Life. This all-new recording also celebrates thirty years of friendship and collaboration in concerts and recordings for Ma and Stott. The album includes pieces they have frequently performed but never recorded, as well as a handful of discoveries.

“I like to think of Songs from the Arc of Life as an invitation to our audience to remember and imagine what the soundtracks of their lives might be,” Yo-Yo Ma says.  “Childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, old age: what do they sound like?”

“I love this title,” Stott says, “the ‘Arc of Life’ – because it is one big arc. Once we arrived at the idea, we began to see a beautiful story, a journey through life’s experiences.”

This album was fun to listen to - and from the cover, it must have been fun to make too. The album starts and ends with two well-known versions of Ave Maria, and in between offers homage to childhood (Songs My Mother Taught Me, Lullaby), love (Salut d'amour, The Wounded Heart), and more. About half of the songs were ones I had heard, and the others were just as delightful as hearing the familiar favorites was. It's an album full of beautiful, rich sounds, well worth listening to.

The album is available on iTunes, Amazon (CD), Amazon (mp3), Amazon (Vinyl), Spotify, Google Play. You can learn more about Yo-Yo Ma on his website, or Facebook, @yoyo_ma, or Youtube. You can learn more about Kathryn Stott on her website, or @kathystott.

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