Natalie MacMaster

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style.

Remove this template after wikifying. This article has been tagged since October 2006.

Natalie MacMaster CM (born June 13, 1972) is an award-winning fiddler from the rural community of Troy in Inverness County, Nova Scotia, Canada.

MacMaster is one of the best-known musicians in the tradition of Cape Breton fiddle music. She began playing the fiddle at the age of 9, and made her performing debut the same year at a square dance in Glencoe Mills, Nova Scotia. She has made a highly successful career as a touring musician, travelling to Europe and Asia and doing as many as 250 shows in a year. She has toured with many famous performers, including the Chieftains, Faith Hill, Carlos Santana and Alison Krauss. She has appeared at many music festivals worldwide, including the Celtic Colours festival in Cape Breton, Celtic Connections in Scotland, and MerleFest in the United States.

When she was 16 she released her first album, Four on the Floor. She released her second album, Road to the Isle, in 1991. Both of these self-produced albums were released only on cassette, but they were re-released as A Compilation (with a few tracks omitted) by Rounder Records in 1998. Natalie's other albums include Fit as a Fiddle (1993), No Boundaries (1996), the Grammy-nominated My Roots are Showing (1998), In My Hands (1999), Live (2002), Blueprint (2003), and Traditional Music from Cape Breton Island (with Buddy MacMaster, 2005).

She has received a number of Canadian music awards, including several "Artist of the Year" awards from the East Coast Music Association, two Juno awards for best instrumental album, and "Fiddler of the Year" from the Canadian Country Music Association. MacMaster was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Niagara University in New York in 2006.

In recent years she has expanded her musical repertoire, mixing her Cape Breton roots with music from Scotland and Ireland, as well as American bluegrass.

Natalie is the daughter of Alex and Minnie (Beaton) MacMaster, and the niece of Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster. She is the cousin of two other well-known Cape Breton fiddlers, Ashley MacIsaac and Andrea Beaton, and she is also a neighbour of folk-artist Travis MacRae. In 2002 she married fiddler Donnell Leahy of the Leahy family band. On December 3, 2005 she gave birth to a daughter, Mary Frances Rose.

In 2006, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada. ^[1]