Gothic Theatre
Natalie MacMaster
Eleven East Coast Music Awards, including 2002 Entertainer of the Year. She’s been named Fiddle Player of the Year the past five consecutive years by the Canadian Country Music Awards. She’s won two Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammy), and speaking of Grammy awards, has been nominated for one as well. It doesn’t stop there; that’s only a start, just the beginning.
She has shared the live performance stage with acts ranging from Carlos Santana to the Chieftains, Paul Simon to Luciano Pavarotti, Alison Krauss to Mark O’Connor and dozens of world-class symphony orchestras. She’s performed on ABC Television’s New Year’s Eve broadcast at the special request of one of her greatest fans, host, Peter Jennings. She’s created, financed and produced her very own nationally broadcast network TV special.
Two of her CD’s have charted on Billboard’s Top 20 Selling World Music charts. Four of her previous five CD releases have been certified “gold” (50 000 +) in Canada.
Her exhaustive touring schedule has taken her from stages in Hawaii to Antarctica, Alaska to Japan, from Scotland to Italy, Germany to the Hollywood Bowl and beyond.
She is often referred to as “the busiest woman in the Canadian music business.”
TV, radio and print advertising campaigns have featured and incorporated her music and image, including: “Tim Horton’s Donuts”, “Farmers Dairy—Milk”, General Motors—Pontiac” as well as countless charities and fundraisers big and small alike.
Her name is, Natalie MacMaster.
She is not just a fiddle player. She’s a world-class dancer, internationally renowned concert performer and one heck of a down to earth person.
What music is to Natalie MacMaster is evident in the eyes and on the faces of her fans during any of her concerts; the sheer joy of performance; the absolute love of the music; an unspoken knowledge that something special is being shared. All that Natalie gives…she gets in return. Still, she’d insist that it is she who is on the winning end of the deal.
As a nine year old growing up in the musically and culturally rich community of Troy, Inverness County, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada; (as Natalie often explains in her live shows) she was perfectly placed to get her start. It was at nine that she first picked up the fiddle and our exciting journey began. It continues still.
To speak of Natalie’s profile as anything but international and her reputation as anything other than world class, would be doing her and her years of tireless work a great disservice.
In what has already been an incredibly busy and successful year, Natalie has just released her first live recording, a two CD set simply titled Live. As with so many other aspects of her career, Natalie has recorded an album about her fans and for her fans, all of them. And it takes two discs to fully capture all of the talent Natalie has to share.
Disc one is representative of her high-powered, full band, musically progressive show, which has a reputation of bringing down houses no matter the venue. This collection was culled from the live recording of a concert at The Living Arts Center, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; which also served as the foundation for her nationally broadcast TV special. Disc two features Natalie in her own “backyard” (so to speak) playing for a very traditional Cape Breton style square dance at the Glencoe Mills hall, on a long dirt road deep in the wooded foot hills of Cape Breton near her home of Troy. The CD is a window into the age-old traditions that were the foundation of everything Natalie has since become.
All things considered, Natalie’s new double live CD packs a very well rounded and diverse musical punch, featuring something for everyone; not only fans of great fiddle playing but any fan of fantastic music.
Even as this recording is released Natalie is hard at work in the recording studio in Nashville, TN putting together her next studio release. Also in the works is a DVD release derived from much of the music and associated film and video footage featured on the double live CD. As always, Natalie will be busy touring and performing live, so she’ll be seeing everyone soon!
