Meet Natalie MacMaster: wife, mother and virtuoso Cape Breton fiddler. You may know her more as the latter than the former; an electrifying performer whose passionate proficiency on the beloved four-string amplifies the traditional East Coast sound for contemporary times. It’s a signature sound that has resonated with world audiences through 10 albums, multiple gold sales figures and 27 years; numerous Juno and East Coast Music Awards–and a reputation as one of Canada’s most captivating performers. She also has the respect and admiration of the crème de la crème of top-notch musicians: including master violinist Mark O’Connor, legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma, banjo prodigy Béla Fleck, and fellow fiddling marvel Alison Krauss. But to Natalie MacMaster, her beloved family now shapes and informs her musicianship as much as the jigs, reels, air, waltzes, strathspeys, marches and traditional folk that feed her spiritual soul. If anything, though, her family has reinvigorated her commitment to the stage and her audience.
“I like being on stage even more,” she enthuses. “When I appear onstage, that’s my departure from Momhood – and I transform into Natalie MacMaster: the entertainer, the fiddler, the performer. I relish that now more.”
As do her audiences, who are left clapping, hollering and screaming for more as MacMaster and her band wow them with stylistic diversity and infectious step dancing.
“I was 16 when I started focusing on the step dancing, and it was kind of a joke at the time,” she recalls. “I was with a bunch of other young musicians and we all played and we all danced. It was a joke at the beginning, but then I began pulling it out of the hat so to speak when I needed to perk up the crowd, and it always did the trick.
“As the years went on, people came to expect it, so I still do a little of that – even when I’m pregnant.”
But it’s her majesty with the bow and her intricate technique in making the fiddle sing and championing the Cape Breton tradition that floors her admirers for over 100 shows per year.
“I guess culture and tradition never go out of style,” MacMaster explains. “For my crowds, they’ve been there for so many years – they just keep building and hanging on. “I think they’ve seen me go from a very youthful new sound into a maturity and a confidence through the years.
Her artistry has thrilled audiences throughout Europe and North America, especially in her native Canada, enabling MacMaster to passionately perform and promote the universal language of her Cape Breton sound. And at a youthful 36, her strength and confidence in performing the fiddle continues to drive her passion and hunger to explore her love of music even further – and satisfy her audiences, and herself, in the process.
“I have a gratefulness and an appreciation,” says MacMaster. “I am grateful for the ability to play music to people, for the ability that I have to extract so much from a tune or a melody and the rich feeling I get from it. “Music has given me another layer and dimension of feeling because it really broadens the soul and really broadens the heart, you know?”
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