This summer, as family and friends across the globe are reconnecting after long absences, UC Berkeley’s gorgeous Greek Theatre welcomes its own very special reunion—a quartet of brilliant virtuosos, meeting under the stars for a sublime evening of musical conversation and merriment. 

For the first time in nearly a decade, the musicians of the original (and beloved!) Goat Rodeo Sessions—Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Edgar Meyer on bass, and Chris Thile on mandolin—share a stage in selections that combine their diverse backgrounds in classical, folk, and bluegrass music to create a sound that’s part composed, part improvised, and totally, uniquely American. Their music is so challenging to navigate that the group likens playing it to a “goat rodeo,” airplane pilots’ slang for a situation so nearly unmanageable that countless parts must come together perfectly in order to avoid disaster. 

The artists are joined in their adventures by featured vocalist Aoife O’Donovan, who also appears on last year’s recording Not Our First Goat Rodeo, the sensational studio follow-up to their double-Grammy winning 2011 debut. 

“What the players layer on in complexity, they match in sheer joyfulness of expression…. High-risk? Yes, but this second outing sees them riding off into the sunset with heads held high” (The Strad).

This event will run approximately 90 minutes without an intermission.