Heartland An Appalachian Anthology (2002)

"In 1995, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor joined forces on Appalachia Waltz, the first of a series of Sony Classical albums celebrating the varied musical textures of Americana. Over the course of six years, several albums were cut, among them Short Trip Home, Liberty!, Uncommon Ritual, and Midnight on the Water, in addition to the Grammy-winning Appalachia Waltz. Each project may have had its own specific instrumental focus, although the shared theme was clearly to obfuscate the genre lines that separate classical and traditional American music on a 200-year journey from the concert halls of Britain to the Shenandoah Valley. Heartland: An Appalachian Anthology is a carefully plucked and eclectic amalgam of these recordings. Featuring swinging waltzes, Baroque chamber music, Celtic reels, and Yankee ballads, this compendium serves as a stylistic hub of the European strain in American music". (Brian Kelly, Allmusic).