Cécile McLorin Salvant performs "Until" from her Nonesuch Records debut, Ghost Song. Video directed by Matthew Edginton with animation by Salvant. "This is the weirdest, moodiest set of lyrics," Salvant says. "I feel like lyrics can morph into what you want them to be depending on when you listen. Of course it’s about love and romance, but there are these weird turns it takes, the dance at the center of the song. And that idea of catching the world in an hourglass is so great to me. I’m obsessed with hourglasses; I draw a lot of them in my visual art. It’s one of my favorite memento mori moments—the beauty of it and also the finality of it."

Cécile McLorin Salvant performs "Thunderclouds" from her Nonesuch Records debut, Ghost Song. Video directed by Matthew Edginton with animation by Salvant. "I suffer from insomnia, and so do others in my family, and in one way this song is about having to suffer in darkness," Salvant says. "It’s again celebrating something that is dark—that line, ‘Sometimes you have to gaze into a well to see the sky.’ It’s talking about looking down into the depths of a situation to truly see the beauty of it."

Nonesuch Records Chairman Emeritus Bob Hurwitz speaks with Cécile McLorin Salvant for In Our Time, a series of online discussions conceived for the New School's College of Performing Arts and UCLA.