Lisa Condit spoke with Natalie MacMaster, who joins husband Donnell Leahy in bringing Visions from Cape Breton and Beyond presented by Music Worcester to our stage on Friday, March 15. Read on for highlights from the interview, or listen to the full interview below.
Lisa: Natalie, you are a fierce fiddler. Your music transports audiences to a very joyful place.
Natalie: I’ve been playing for 35 years. Donnell has been playing for 45 years. That’s a lot of years. We’ve grown up in the thick of Celtic music. For me it was more Scottish. For Donnell, it was more Irish. But for both of us, it was a very Canadian version of that.
It’s all rooted in ancient music of the Celts. The music has evolved into its own brand of a style that honors what we’ve come from and embraces the age that we live in. We have a band with us that is very uplifting and “groovy,” with a bit of jazz, a bit of funk and even a bit of classical and folk and Celtic all mixed in. We do a lot of old traditional tunes that people will recognize and tunes that have a bit of a twist to them.
Lisa: We’re excited to partner with Music Worcester, who came to us with this program. When Adrien Finlay talked about the musicianship, it got everybody really excited.
Natalie: We have seven kids and four of them are coming with us. We will give them the stage for a few minutes to show the future of the traditions that we will continue to pass on. It’s for little ones and for people who enjoy watching the next generation take over.