Among performing artists, American cellist Yo-Yo Ma stands apart from his colleagues in more ways than one. His success as a musician has given him a platform upon which to explore connections with communities and advocate for the use of art and culture in strengthening our connections to the region and the natural world.
To that end, Big Ears is announcing a collaboration with Ma on a special event on Friday evening, May 26, at World’s Fair Park: Our Common Nature: An Appalachian Celebration. Announced by Ashley Capps on January 31 at the Mill and Mine, the celebratory occasion, curated by Ma, will also feature a number of musical guests, among them Rhiannon Giddens, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer. The event will also include other musicians, storytellers, and poets from throughout the Appalachian region. With World’s Fair Park grounds made over into a village of sorts, the performances will be augmented by regional arts and crafts, puppetry, folk dancing, as well as regional foods, all components that make up the complex culture of the Smoky Mountain cities and communities.
The World’s Fair Park event will cap a week-long series of cultural experiences and conversations that seek to illuminate the full scope of the southern Appalachian community – Indigenous, European, Latinx, Black, and beyond. With the natural world as a guide, local artists, scientists, leaders, and community members will explore our common future through a series of cultural experiences and conversations. This week of events in Appalachia continues Ma’s multi-year, multi-location project, “Our Common Nature,” which has brought together other communities from Maine to Hawaii “to explore the many ways in which culture connects us to the natural world and to one another.”
Capps indicated that he had been in contact with Yo-Yo Ma over the years in regard to an appearance at a Big Ears festival, but the cellist’s advance bookings had always made a connection impossible. However, Ma’s interest in “Our Common Nature” led to his asking Big Ears to organize the regional event in Knoxville.
In addition to the World’s Fair Park concert, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile and singer Rhiannon Giddens will each perform concerts, on May 25 and May 27 respectively, at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville. Tickets for those concerts will go on sale at a future date. Bassist Edgar Meyer is scheduled to perform at the Big Ears 2023
Tickets for the Friday, May 26th event “Our Common Nature: An Appalachian Celebration” by Yo-Yo Ma & Friends will go on sale Friday, February 3, at 9 a.m. ET at www.ourcommonnature.org.
