The Goat Rodeo Sessions is a 2011 collaborative album by Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

, Stuart Duncan

Stuart Duncan

Stuart Duncan is a bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo. Born in Quantico, Virginia and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school band, he has been a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band since 1985, and is a much-in-demand session musician...

, Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger...

 and Chris Thile

Chris Thile

Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...

. The album is Ma's third collaboration with Meyer.

Conception and production

Meyer has previously collaborated with both Ma and Thile, and in 2008 suggested Thile to work on Ma's Songs of Joy and Peace. The three expressed an interest in a future collaboration. Along with Duncan, they held their first rehearsal at Ma's house. The compositions are credited to Meyer, Thile, and Duncan.

The term "goat rodeo

Goat rodeo

The term Goat rodeo or goat rope refers to an especially chaotic situation, typically in a corporate or bureaucratic setting.-See Also:*Goat tying, a fast-paced rodeo event that is typically seen in junior, high school and college rodeos....

" in the album's title means 'a chaotic situation', a reference to the unusual and challenging aspects of blending the classical and bluegrass genres. The resulting sound has been dubbed "genre proof" by the group.

Track listing

1. "Attaboy" - 5.42
2. "Quarter Chicken Dark" - 4.47
3. "Helping Hand" - 4.32
4. "Where's My Bow?" - 5.30
5. "Here And Heaven" - 3.53
6. "Franz And The Eagle" - 6.53
7. "Less Is Moi" - 7.27
8. "Hill Justice" - 4.29
9. "No One But You" - 3.54
10. "13:8" - 5.54
11. "Goat Rodeo" - 4.18

Bonus tracks (available only from Barnes and Noble):

12. "Mostly Six Eight"
13. "Parallax"

Personnel

• Yo-Yo Ma - cello
  Cello
  The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
  
  
• Stuart Duncan - violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  , banjo
  Banjo
  In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
  
  , mandolin
  Mandolin
  A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
  
  
• Edgar Meyer - bass
  Double bass
  The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
  
  , piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
  , gamba
  Viol
  The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
  
  
• Chris Thile - mandolin, guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , gamba, vocals on tracks 5, 9
• Aoife O'Donovan
  Aoife O'Donovan
  Aoife O’Donovan is an American singer and songwriter. She is also the lead singer for the progressive bluegrass/string band, Crooked Still, and a member of the female folk-noir trio, Sometymes Why. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers...
  
  - vocals on tracks 5, 9