Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile Reunite Grammy Award-Winning Group For Not Our First Goat Rodeo
LONG-AWAITED FOLLOW-UP TO THE GOAT RODEO SESSIONS TO BE RELEASED MAY 1 - PREORDER NOW
ALBUM'S LEAD SINGLE AND LIVE VIDEO "SCARCELY CRICKET" OUT TODAY
GROUP WILL BRING NEW ALBUM ON THE ROAD FOR ACCOMPANYING U.S. TOUR DATES THIS SUMMER & FALL
03/13/2020
NEW YORK, March 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Music Masterworks announces the long-awaited follow-up to the GRAMMY Award-winning The Goat Rodeo Sessions, with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. The new album — Not Our First Goat Rodeo — will be released May 1 and is available now to preorder. Making its debut alongside the album preorder is its lead offering, "Scarcely Cricket," which the group pairs with a live performance video — watch here. Following the album's May release, the group will set out on a coast-to-coast U.S. tour beginning in August, followed by a second set of performances in October.
WATCH VIDEO FOR "SCARCELY CRICKET"
YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/U2JkD27gAQY
EMBED CODE: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U2JkD27gAQY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Both sets of Goat Rodeo sessions combine the talents of the four solo artists, each a Grammy Award-winning talent in his own right, to create a singular sound that's part composed, part improvised, and uniquely American. The music is so complex to pull off that the group likens it to a goat rodeo — an aviation term for a situation in which 100 things need to go right to avoid disaster. Both the first album and the new recording also feature the voice and artistry of singer-songwriter and fellow Grammy Award-winner Aoife O'Donovan, who rejoins the group as a guest on Not Our First Goat Rodeo.
The new release builds on 2011's genre-defying The Goat Rodeo Sessions, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Classical, Classical Crossover, and Bluegrass charts and remained at No. 1 for 11 weeks on the Bluegrass chart. Marking Yo-Yo Ma's highest debut on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, the release went on to break into the chart's top 20 albums, where it peaked at No. 18. NPR's World Cafe called the album, which received GRAMMY Awards for Best Folk Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, "organic yet composed in a way that only four deeply talented, in-tune musicians could make it," with traces of, "Appalachia[n], Chinese, classical, Celtic, and jazz influences. If there was ever an album — or an unlikely band — that embodies the word 'eclectic,' this is it."
The Los Angeles Times has described the collaboration as "unlikely musicians on unlikely instruments … part blues, part bluegrass and a smidgen of Bach." The four musicians come from diverse backgrounds: Yo-Yo Ma (cello), a classical cellist known for his cross-genre collaborations and deep belief in culture's essential role in society; Stuart Duncan (fiddle, banjo), a multi-instrument bluegrass virtuoso who has played with artists from Dolly Parton to George Strait; Edgar Meyer (bass), a double bassist and composer who has written for musicians from Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain to Emanuel Ax and Hilary Hahn; and Chris Thile (mandolin, fiddle, guitar, vocals), the mandolinist wunderkind who fronts bands such as Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers and hosts public radio's Live from Here. Their traditions and experiences intersect in this collaboration to create a compelling sound that is at once global and American, a shared voice that speaks to the moment in which we live.
NOT OUR FIRST GOAT RODEO
TRACKLISTING –
- Your Coffee Is a Disaster
- Waltz Whitman
- The Trappings (feat. Aoife O'Donovan)
- Every Note a Pearl (feat. Aoife O'Donovan)
- Not for Lack of Trying
- Voila!
- Scarcely Cricket
- We Were Animals (feat. Aoife O'Donovan)
- Nebbia
- 757 ml
NOT OUR FIRST GOAT RODEO – 2020 U.S. TOUR DATES — MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED
DATE | LOCATION | VENUE |
August 08 | Cuyahoga Falls, OH | Blossom Music Center |
August 10 | Saratoga Springs, NY | Saratoga Performing Arts Center |
August 11 | Kennett Square, PA | Longwood Gardens Open Air Theater |
August 12 | Vienna, VA | Wolf Trap |
August 13 | Chicago, IL | Millennium Park |
August 15 | Greenwood Village, CO | Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre |
August 18 | Portland, OR | Edgefield Concerts on the Lawn |
August 22 | San Diego, CA | The Shell |
August 23 | Los Angeles, CA | Hollywood Bowl |
October 18 | Greensboro, NC | Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts |
October 24 | Auburn, AL | Woltosz Theatre at the Gogue Performing Arts Center |
October 25 | Nashville, TN | Schermerhorn Symphony Center |
October 26 | Boston, MA | Symphony Hall – Celebrity Series |
October 27 | New York, NY | Carnegie Hall |
FOR THE LATEST IN TOURING AND TICKETING INFORMATION, VISIT YO-YOMA.COM/CONCERTS
APPROVED PRESS SHOT (CREDIT JOSH GOLEMAN): DOWNLOAD
From Left to Right: Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer
ALBUM ARTWORK (FOR MEDIA USE): DOWNLOAD
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE GOAT RODEO SESSIONS
"Haunting, invigorating, often breathtaking clash of classical, bluegrass, folk, jazz and free-form music traditions"
LOS ANGELES TIMES
"An endlessly moving and ambitious album…"
NPR'S WORLD CAFE
"The four virtuosos ignore genre restraints to impart on an inspiring journey full of exhilarating string music that ranges from beautiful to mind-spinning."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, OKeh, Portrait and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Larissa Slezak | Jamie Bertel – Sony Music Masterworks
Amanda Ameer – First Chair Promotion
SOURCE Sony Music Masterworks
