Thank you CD

(New York, NY – September 13) – Yo-Yo Ma and longtime collaborator Kathryn Stott announce their new album, Merci (Sony Classical), to be released on October 25, and available now for preorder. Today’s news comes accompanied by the release of the first track from the new recording, Gabriel Fauré’s Sicilienne Op. 78 – listen here.

Merci is a deeply personal act of gratitude, a celebration of the powerful bonds that keep music alive. This effervescent recording has its roots in the compositions of Gabriel Fauré, whom Stott calls her “musical soulmate,” and follows the arcs of his inspiration and influence, from the creations of his teacher Camille Saint-Saëns and his friend and supporter Pauline Viardot to the works of his student Nadia Boulanger and her sister, Lili. Merci is a testament to the gift of friendship, to the connections between performers, between students and teachers, and between generations that make music magical.

Ma and Stott – both connected to Fauré through their respective teachers Luise Vosgerchian and Nadia Boulanger – reveal the scope of Fauré’s influence and inspiration through a recording that interlaces Fauré’s works for cello and piano with compositions by members of his musical family. Beginning with his “Berceuse, Op. 16,” Fauré’s works alternate with those of his student (Nadia Boulanger), his teacher (Camille Saint-Saëns), and his friends and contemporaries (Lili Boulanger, Pauline Viardot), in a tribute to the belief that, in Ma’s words, “we musicians stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and that we can only hope for ours to hold those who come after.”

“The inspiration for this project goes right back to my earliest years as a young girl at the Menuhin School, where teachers often came over from Paris,” writes Stott in the recording’s liner notes. “One of these was Nadia Boulanger. Nadia had been a student of Gabriel Fauré and, when I was 10 years old, I had the great privilege of playing Fauré’s fourth Barcarolle for her; from that moment on, Fauré’s music was never separate from me. At 10 years old, I had found my musical soulmate.”

Gabriel Fauré stands at the heart of a musical family tree so deeply rooted in the history of Western music that it extends, via direct teacher-mentor lineage, back to Johann Sebastian Bach. The forward-looking reach of Fauré’s influence is no less impressive: among the artists who can trace a direct connection to Fauré via teachers or mentors are Quincy Jones, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Leonard Bernstein.

Ma and Stott will embark on a recital tour of Europe, including performances in Reykjavik (Oct. 26), London (Nov. 2), Stockholm (Nov. 3), Berlin (Nov. 5), Munich (Nov. 7), and Paris (Nov. 9). Programmed works include compositions by Fauré and Nadia Boulanger, and also Antonin Dvořák, Sérgio Assad, Dmitri Shostakovich, Arvo Pärt, and César Franck.

Ma and Stott’s recording collaboration began in 1985, and includes Soul of the Tango and Obrigado Brazil, each of which earned a GRAMMY® Award for “Best Classical Crossover Album.” In recent years, they have collaborated on the 2020 release Songs of Comfort and Hope – inspired by the home-recorded musical offerings Ma began sharing under the hashtag #SongsofComfort in the earliest days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States – and the acclaimed 2015 release Songs from the Arc of Life. Of the former, Gramophone wrote: “Ma and his frequent duo partner Kathryn Stott have succeeded in bringing a wide-ranging collection of miniatures into something that feels more like a recital than a compilation.”