''The Goat Rodeo Sessions'' is a 2011 collaborative album by

Stuart Duncan Stuart Duncan (born April 14, 1964) is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo. Life Duncan was born in Quantico, Virginia, and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school band. He ...

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma (''Chinese'': 馬友友 ''Ma Yo Yo''; born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from ...

Edgar Meyer Edgar Meyer (born November 24, 1960) is an American bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. He has won five Grammy Awards and been nominated seven times. Meyer is a member of the Telluride Bluegrass ...

and

Chris Thile Christopher Scott Thile (; born February 20, 1981) is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive blue ...

, featuring

Aoife O'Donovan Aoife O'Donovan ( , ; born November 18, 1982) is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm ...

. The album won the 2013

Grammy Award for Best Folk Album The Grammy Award for Best Folk Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for releasing albums in the folk genre. Honors in several c ...

and the Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

Background

Meyer previously collaborated with Ma on ''

Appalachia Waltz ''Appalachia Waltz'' is the first album from the trio of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, double-bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, and fiddler and composer Mark O'Connor. Sony Classical released the disc in 1996. It was recorded over three days, 14–17 Augus ...

'' and '' Appalachian Journey,'' and with Thile on ''Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile''. In 2008, Meyer and Thile played on Ma's '' Songs of Joy and Peace'' and the three discussed a future collaboration. Along with Duncan, they held their first rehearsal at Ma's house. The compositions are credited to Meyer, Thile, and Duncan—with "Here and Heaven" co-written with

. The term ' refers to a chaotic event where many things must go right for the situation to work, a reference to the unusual and challenging aspects of blending classical and bluegrass music. Yo-Yo Ma described a goat rodeo, saying: "If there were forks in the road and each time there was a fork, the right decision was made, then you get to a goat rodeo." On January 31, 2012, Ma, Meyer, Thile, Duncan, and O'Donovan played their first public concert at the

House of Blues House of Blues is an American chain of live music concert halls and restaurants. It was founded by Isaac Tigrett, the co-founder of Hard Rock Cafe, and Dan Aykroyd, co-star of the 1980 film ''The Blues Brothers''. The first location opened at ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, presented by the

Celebrity Series of Boston The Celebrity Series of Boston is a non-profit performing arts presenter established in Boston, Massachusetts by Boston impresario Aaron Richmond in 1938 as Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series. Since its founding the Celebrity Series has evolved i ...

. The show was streamed in real time to movie theaters in the United States. In addition to songs from the album, they played Johann Sebastian Bach's ''Gamba Sonata Number 1 Movement 4,'' ''Fiddle Medley,'' and '' All Through The Night''. They released part of the concert as an EP, ''The Goat Rodeo Sessions Live from the House of Blues'', on February 7, 2012. A DVD of the concert, ''The Goat Rodeo Sessions Live'', was released on May 29, 2012. According to Stuart Duncan, the piece "13:8" isn't a reference to time signature, but rather to the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

verse

Hebrews The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still no ...

13:8. At a concert at Tanglewood on August 15, 2013, Duncan told a story about an airline pilot who, every time he was given his dinner by the flight attendant, said, "Hebrews 13:8". She finally looked it up and learned that the Bible verse read: "

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow." He said that that was the basis for the title, and that music students are wasting their time looking for that time signature within the piece. Two bonus tracks, ''Mostly Six Eight'' and ''Parallax,'' were released as a single, ''More from the Goat Rodeo Sessions,'' on February 29, 2012. The album debuted at number one on the ''Billboard'' Classical, Classical Crossover, and Bluegrass charts and reached number eighteen on the ''

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of art ...

.'' It has sold 160,000 copies in the United States. On February 10, 2013, the album won the

and the

Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical The Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical has been awarded since 1959. The award had several minor name changes: * In 1959, the award was known as Best Engineered Record – Non-Classical * In 1960, it was awarded as Best Engineeri ...

. In August 2019, Meyer shared photographs on social media of the group, including O'Donovan, in studio recording new material. On June 19, 2020, the group released a second album, entitled ''

Not Our First Goat Rodeo ''Not Our First Goat Rodeo'' is a 2020 collaborative album by Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile, featuring Aoife O'Donovan. It was released on June 19, 2020. Background On October 24, 2011, Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar ...

''.

Track listing

Personnel

–

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

–

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

– bass,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

gamba Gamba or Gambas may refer to: Geography *Gamba, Gabon, a port **Gamba Airport in Gamba, Gabon *Gamba, Chad, a town *Gamba County, Tibet People *Gamba (surname) *Gamba (footballer) (Carlos Alberto Gambarotta; 1893–1944), Brazilian footballer Ot ...

– mandolin,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, fiddle, gamba,

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

on tracks 5, 9 *

– vocals on tracks 5, 9 * Richard King –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Steve Carver Steve Carver (April 5, 1945 – January 8, 2021) was an American film director, producer, and photographer. Biography Carver attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art and received his BA from Cornell University and his MFA from Washingt ...

- piano technician * Steven Epstein – producer

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goat Rodeo Sessions Yo-Yo Ma albums 2011 albums Collaborative albums Chris Thile albums Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical