Yo-Yo Ma has partnered with the Knoxville-based arts nonprofit Big Ears for a multi-faceted concert presentation, “Our Common Nature: An Appalachian Celebration,” with special musical guests Rhiannon Giddens, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer, for Friday, May 26, at World’s Fair Park in Knoxville, TN. In addition, Thile and Giddens will each perform a concert, May 25 and May 27, respectively, at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville.

Conceived and curated by Yo-Yo Ma, the World’s Fair Park celebration will include musicians, storytellers, and poets from throughout the Appalachian region. The festival grounds will be a celebration of its own, with regional cuisines, arts & crafts, puppetry, storytelling, square dancing, and more music-making in a celebration of the Smoky Mountains and the many communities who call them home.

The World’s Fair Park event will be the culmination of a week-long series of cultural experiences and conversations that lift the myriad voices of Appalachia—Indigenous, European, Latinx, Black, and beyond—and gather local artists, scientists, leaders, and community members in an exploration of our common future, with nature as a guide. This week of events in Appalachia continues Ma’s multi-year, multi-location project, “Our Common Nature,” which has brought together communities from Maine to Hawai‘i to explore the many ways in which culture connects us to the natural world and to one another. These community events and gatherings—many open to the public—will be announced in the coming weeks.

Tickets for Friday, May 26, event “Our Common Nature: An Appalachian Celebration” with Yo-Yo Ma & Friends will go on sale this Friday, February 3, at 9am ET. For tickets and to sign up for updates on the other concerts, for which tickets will go on sale at a future date, visit ourcommonnature.org.

Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer released Bach Trios, an album of works by J.S. Bach originally written for keyboard instruments plus a sonata for viola da gamba, on Nonesuch in 2017. Thile and Meyer released two duo albus, Bass & Mandolin and Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile, on Nonesuch in 2014 and 2008, respectively. Rhiannon Giddens wrote the song “Build a House” for the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth in 2020 and performs it on a recording with Ma and Francesco Turrisi in a recording released this past October on Nonesuch.