Renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma is featured in a new seven-episode podcast that follows him as he travels the country, exploring the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
“Our Common Nature” features Hawaiʻi in its two final episodes. In the finale available starting Nov. 19, Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello aboard the voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa, hoping to communicate with whales.
The sixth episode, which is already out on podcast platforms, traces "the spiritual power of mana, from a sacred grove to the Kalaupapa colony, where music, story, and Yo-Yo Ma’s performance honor the resilience and memory of those who came before."
The Conversation spoke with podcast host Ana González and Kumu Hula Snowbird Puananiopaoakalani Bento, who is featured in the series finale. González starts with how “Our Common Nature” came about.
Interview highlights
On how the podcast started
ANA GONZÁLEZ: The short story is Yo-Yo Ma came up with this. You don't go to Yo-Yo and say, ‘Hey, let's make a podcast.’ It was him expanding his musical practice by expanding his understanding of different cultures. So he's been touring the world since he was 4 years old. He knows every concert hall on the planet, but he's been going to mostly cities and urban areas and learning music in the Western classical tradition. And over the past few years, since the pandemic, he decided to go outside of the concert hall and figure out: What does music really mean to people? What happens when the concert hall disappears, when you can't go there, where can you play? What kinds of music do people feel connected to, and what do people need right now in this moment, and how can I bring that to them? It started from this desire that Yo-Yo had to be more connected to the natural world, and he decided to start playing outside in places that are charged with meaning and history or beauty and learning from the people who live there. And that's how ‘Our Common Nature,’ this touring show, kind of started, and then he was like, I need more people to listen to this. It can’t be just these intimate experiences. So he decided to make a podcast. … And I started traveling with him. And three years later, this series now exists.
On meeting and working with Yo-Yo Ma
SNOWBIRD BENTO: I’ve been a fan of Yo-Yo Ma since I was 12 years old. Because I was a brand new student at Kamehameha Schools, I had a picture of him in my practice room, I was a cellist, and so I always had a picture of him in my head; he was inspiration for me. Fast forward to 2018, and I got to accompany a bunch of our students and some of our canoe friends from Hōkūleʻa, the Polynesian Voyaging Society, in San Francisco. And that was the first time that I met Yo-Yo. And I was standing there fangirling like a crazy lady, but trying to be really proper and look really calm and relaxed and grounded, but inside I was just like [screams]. Musically, he was a hero to me. There was something about the music that spoke to my naʻau. Then fast forward again, I get a phone call from one of my very dear friends, Aaron Salā, who does a lot of work in music and production. ... And he said, 'Bird, Yo-Yo Ma is coming to Hawaiʻi, and they're looking for a couple of people to perform with him. I'm recommending you, because I think that you would fit right in.' And I think, OK, yay, but, you know, trying not to get too overwhelmed and verklempt, but I was in a space that evening of the concert, where I wanted everyone to be able to feel palpably the energy that can happen through the power of music and the power of grounding. Music can ground the spirit, and it can lift the soul. Music can cross boundaries that people cannot always. Music connects us to past and present and to future, because it encapsulates hope, and it also encapsulates all of the emotions, the range of emotions that we have as humans. And then it reminds us that our environment has the exact same, you know, it's exactly that. It's not sterile.
On being on Hōkūleʻa with Yo-Yo Ma
BENTO: And so fast forward then to December 2022 in Kawaihae, and we're getting on the waʻa (Hōkūleʻa) ... I remember saying, if they (the whales) would like to make an appearance, then they will. All we can do is ask, and all we can do is have an expectant, not heart, but naʻau, spirit, an expectant spirit, you have to expect those things. People will talk about magic. For me, in an Indigenous way, the magic is that we still have the words to say, and we still have the melodies that our ancestors used, to converse. And so by having that ability, all I could do was ask, and I did. But I called on my ancestors first, to protect us and to guide us and to be around us. And if they could help influence our kūpuna in the ocean, our ocean people, Kanaloa mā, then let that be so. And as soon as I finished the oli, we had a little flip, and only a handful of us saw it. ... And then our science people who were with us, and they were like, we don't hear them. And I was like, well, maybe they're not talking. Maybe they just said hello — and out. But also in the clouds, the atmosphere was responding, on top of having an erupting volcano. And a double rainbow. And so in the sky, there was a formation that started, and it ended up looking like a really big whale. I remember saying, 'Oh, whales in the sky, okay, we had some in the ocean, now we got some in the sky.' And there's a term we use for that, that it is known to the heavens and the Earth, when you see the things that you needed to see, now, it is known to the heavens and the Earth.
On connecting back to nature
GONZÁLEZ: There is a uniting factor of especially once we tap into Indigenous wisdom, yes, it's so diverse, there are so many tribes and nations and languages and people who were here for thousands and thousands of years, and yet there is a single unifying belief and idea and truth, which is that we are part of nature, and it is so simple, and yet we are so distant from it sometimes. Mainstream U.S. culture, mainstream Western culture, is so removed and sterile, like you said, and viewing us as better than, as different and separate. ... There's this throughline, which is, we are part of nature, and so 'Our Common Nature' means that we share that with each other, too. So it's not just, I'm connected to what's outside my window, but I'm connected to you.
BENTO: If everyone in the places that they're at could understand that we are not more powerful than nature. Nature shows us this every time, continuously. But that it's love at the end, and peace comes with that love, then we have love for all humanity, because humanity is not just the people. It's the animal people, it's the forest people, it's the ocean people, and we realize that everything we do affects us, and us, because we help each other to sustain this life, and so that would be probably the biggest thing: love, because following love comes peace.
This story aired on The Conversation on Nov. 14, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
