As part of Yo-Yo Ma’s project “Our Common Nature”, Viktor Orri Árnason composed “Earth Hymn”. Filmed live in the shadow of the Snæfellsnes glacier, featuring Yo-Yo Ma with a small choir singing words drawn from ancient Icelandic poetry — this is a plea to the world from the edge of a changing planet.
credits

Viktor Orri Árnason, conductor and composer

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Maria Konráðsdóttir - soprano ,Hildigunnur Einarsdóttir - mezzo-soprano, Eyjólfur Eyjólfsson - tenor, Fjölnir Ólafsson - baritone ,Philip Barkhudarov - bass

Executive Producers: Ben Mandelkern and Sophie Shackleton

released October 8th, 2025 as part of Yo-Yo Ma’s EP “Our Common Nature”.

“Earth Hymn” is from RITUAL, a large-scale performance conceived by director Arnbjörg María Danielsen with composer Viktor Orri Árnason and Yo-Yo Ma, with text by Andri Snær Magnason and ancient Icelandic poets. The text in the “hymn” is adapted from “Völuspá” (“The Prophecy of the Seeress”), translation below by Benjamin Thorpe, 1866.