Yo-Yo Ma has just released a new video performance, and it’s one of the most powerful things you’ll watch today. The masterful cellist plays “Song of the Birds (El Cant dels Ocells)” and taps into a piece of humanity for two and a half minutes.

It’s more than just a beautiful performance. Ma steps into a tradition shaped by Pablo Casals, who turned this Catalan folk song into a quiet anthem for peace and freedom. 

“Song of the Birds (El Cant dels Ocells)” is not gripping for any amount of technical fireworks, rather the opposite. Ma begins with trilled harmonics in a hushed tone, mimicking a bird’s call that breaks the morning silence. The melody then floats, seemingly suspending time for listeners to reflect on more than just the music. Its strength is in its simplicity, allowing players to embrace its emotional weight. 

It began as a Catalan Christmas carol that celebrates the birth of Christ. Over time, it has become one of Catalonia’s most recognizable melodies and a symbol of local identity. For Pablo Casals, the song became much more than a carol. 
The eminent cellist fled his homeland after the Spanish Civil War, stating he would not return until democracy was restored. After World War II, he largely withdrew from public performance in the Allied countries “in protest at their immobility in the face of Franco’s regime,” the Casals Foundation shares. He made an exception in 1961 when he brought “Song of the Birds (El Cant dels Ocells)” to the White House in a performance for John F. Kennedy. He brought it out a decade later at the General Assembly of the United Nations, where he received the UN Peace Medal. 

“I have not played the cello in public for many years, but I feel that the time has come to play again,” he said in addressing the assembly. “Birds sing when they are in the sky, they sing: ‘Peace, Peace, Peace,’ and it is a melody that Bach, Beethoven and all the greats would have admired and loved. What is more, it is born in the soul of my people, Catalonia.”

Yo-Yo Ma has frequently paid tribute to Casals over the years, including by adding “Song of the Birds” to his repertoire. It’s fitting, as the late cellist was a big part of his origin story. 

“He played for the eminent cellist in 1962, when he was 7 and Casals was 85,” Javier C. Hernandez explained in the New York Times. “Casals helped launch Ma’s career when he brought the prodigy to the attention of Leonard Bernstein, then the music director of the New York Philharmonic, who introduced Ma at a performance at the White House that same year before an audience that included President Kennedy.”

Now, Ma is continuing the legacy of Pablo Casals by calling for peace in these troubled times through the power of music.