Goat Rodeo Sessions / Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile

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In the tradition of Appalachian Journey and Obrigado Brazil, Yo-Yo Ma once again embraces styles and traditions that go beyond classical music by bringing together four American string virtuosos and creating a new kind of chamber ensemble. The Goat Rodeo Sessions is a landmark album project which uniquely showcases cellist Yo-Yo Ma, fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile, with special guest vocalist, Aoife O’Donovan on two tracks. While each musician is a renowned superstar in his own music sphere, they have come together as a unified ensemble in this most remarkable and organic cross-genre project stemming from their friendship and the title concept.

A “goat rodeo,” according the Urbandictionary.com, “is about the most polite term used by aviation people (and others in higher risk situations) to describe a scenario that requires about 100 things to go right at once if you intend to walk away from it.” Meyer first heard the term used in reference to “a very chaotic situation where a lot of agendas are kind of confused, and it’s hard to tell up from down.” Relating it to The Goat Rodeo Sessions participants, all four lead extremely demanding, if not chaotic lives, making their meeting here on this record, a goat rodeo miracle.

But the term proved a perfect catch-all, too, in describing the otherwise hard-to-define nature of the quartet’s music. Much of the group’s improvisational “co-authorship” was created on the spot. “There’s quite a bit of interplay between the musicians in bringing each piece to life, from composing to figuring out our parts,” says Meyer. Ma offers final clarification, “In the end, what we’re trying to do is simply make music that transcends whatever roots or catagories of backgrounds that it starts from – that just exists as something that we’re trying to express, through our community of values, as a moment in time creating very special music.”


Product Description:


  • Catalog Number: 88697841182


  • UPC: 886978411822


  • Label: Sony Masterworks


  • Composer: Aoife O'Donovan, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan


  • Performer: Aoife O'Donovan, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma