Musician Leyla McCalla won’t play it straight. On the cellist’s stunning debut, she doesn’t draw from that instrument’s common genre or adopt its conventional tone. She doesn’t even stroke its strings ...

When one thinks of the cello, images of tuxedoed musicians waiting at attention in the orchestra pit of a philharmonic is what generally comes to mind. So it’s easy to see why the site of a young ...

For Leyla McCalla's 17th birthday, her father gave her a book of Langston Hughes' poetry. McCalla, a multi-instrumentalist and classically trained cellist, bought anthologies of his work and read any ...

It’s always exciting to hear Louis Michot and Leyla McCalla collaborate. Both musicians are remarkable in their work not only preserving traditional music — Cajun and south Louisianan styles for ...

A cover originally written and performed by Ethiopian artist and activist Ali Mohammed Birra, Leyla McCalla has shared her Tropicalia-inflected version of “Love We Had” today. Serving as an African ...

Leyla McCalla didn’t intend to make a “protest album.” On her previous two albums, McCalla’s gentle voice floats alongside her cello, a vessel for her plucked folk-poetry and Haitian music, a ...

Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify and Apple Music playlists at the bottom of the page. For "Penha," a pilgrim's ...

Leyla McCalla isn’t afraid of big, sudden changes. The classically trained cellist and vocalist was busking in New Orleans when a chance encounter with the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ manager led to ...

When Leyla McCalla was commissioned by Duke University to delve into its archive of Radio Haiti broadcasts, the idea was for the classical/folk musician and singer/songwriter to co-create a ...

For her third album The Capitalist Blues, Haitian American singer and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla questions the race to get ahead, and sings for the people left behind. "It’s hard to call a ...

Leyla McCalla has built her songwriting style around the cello, an instrument that's rarely central in folk and pop styles — and one she began her study of by accident. Growing up in New Jersey, she ...