Juno Award-winning Natalie MacMaster will play April 4 at the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay, one of only two Vancouver Island dates on her current tour.
The Celtic fiddler and step dancer is promoting her new album, Cape Breton Girl.
MacMaster's accomplishments are numerous.
In her three-decade career, she has amassed multiple gold albums, a number of Juno awards, two Grammy nominations including one win (for her contribution to Yo-Yo Ma’s Songs Of Joy & Peace, for which she received “a nice bottle of champagne”), 10 East Coast Music Awards, eight Canadian Country Music Awards, and is the recipient of the Order of Canada.
She has made multiple appearances on CBC, Canada AM and other TV shows and specials.
MacMaster has also established herself as an electrifying performer all over the world, thrilling Carnegie Hall audiences and Massey Hall crowds; captivating radio audiences with multiple appearances on the CBC, Canada AM and Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and warming TV viewers with guest spots on Christmas specials like Rita MacNeil’s Christmas and Holiday Festival On Ice with Olympic ice skaters Jamie Sale, David Pelletier, Kurt Browning and world champion Jeffrey Buttle.
MacMaster’s talents have also been in demand by her peers, contributing to albums by Ma, the Chieftains; children’s entertainer Raffi; banjo prodigy Béla Fleck; fellow fiddling marvel Alison Krauss, with whom Natalie played a duet on Krauss’s A Hundred Miles Or More: A Collection; dobro specialist Jerry Douglas, singer Hayley Westenra; former Doobie Brother and classic R&B interpreter Michael McDonald and, most recently, Thomas Dolby’s new album Map Of The Floating City.
In turn, such stellar talents as Grammy-winning fiddlers Krauss and Mark O’Connor, Jesus, Take The Wheel songwriter Gordie Sampson, Nuevo Flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook, members of the Rankin Family, Edgar Meyer and Alison Brown are just some who have contributed to Natalie’s own projects through the years, such is their respect for her musicianship.
Her latest undertaking is being an author, co-writing and publishing the picturesque 161 page coffee table book “Cape Breton Aire with Pulitzer Prize-winning wordsmith Eileen McNamara and Eric Roth`s breathtaking photography.
Family has reinvigorated Natalie MacMaster`s commitment to the stage and her audience.
“I like being on stage even more,” enthuses the mother of four and wife of fiddler phenom Donnell Leahy. “When I appear on stage, that’s my departure from being a mother and I transform into Natalie MacMaster — the entertainer, the fiddler, the performer … I relish that now more than ever.”
She performs April 4 at 7:30 p.m. For more information and tickets, visit http://www.sidwilliamstheatre.com/events.
— Sid Williams Theatre