FOLK Story
Natalie MacMaster,
Boston Folk Festival headliner, has music
in her blood
Download printable PDF tearsheet 435KB (includes sidebar story by Sue Scheible)
By STEPHEN A. IDE
The Patriot Ledger
Natalie MacMaster bounds onto the stage with limitless energy, easily sawing the horsehair off her fiddle’s bow as she carefully, swiftly navigates the intricacies of traditional tunes.
As she completes a fast, meticulous passage, the audience cheers - and MacMaster grins.
Her feet begin to move as she fiddles. Slowly at first, then faster. She adds kicks, all the while not missing a fiddle beat.
Eventually, she puts down the fiddle and step-dances, revealing a joy she has felt since she was little girl, learned from her mother and other family growing up on Cape Breton Island, north of Nova Scotia, Canada.
When MacMaster comes to Boston for the upcoming 7th annual Boston Folk Festival, she will bring all that joy to the stage. Though she never has performed at the festival, she has played many times in the city. Boston, for her, is almost like a homecoming.
“I definitely feel at home in Boston. I’ve got a ton of relatives there,” said MacMaster in a phone interview from her Ontario home. She said she has about 100 relatives in the area.
MacMaster will be one of 30 featured acts at the festival, to be held at the University of Massachusetts-Boston Sept. 17-19.
At 32, the curly-locked, leggy blond is surfing a wave of popularity fed by her powerful connections to her traditional musical roots.
MacMaster’s love of the fiddle - she says it’s in her bloodline - began at age 9, in classes with other children.
The niece of fiddling great Buddy MacMaster, Natalie has earned recognition in her own right. She is the winner of many East Coast Music Awards, several JUNO awards and was nominated for a Grammy for her 1998 instrumental CD “My Roots Are Showing.”
At the festival, MacMaster expects to perform with her band, consisting of Brad Davidge (guitar, vocals), John Chiasson (bass, vocals), Alan Dewar (keyboards, piano), Matt MacIsaac (bagpipes, whistles) and Miche Pouliot (drums).
Her music offers a fusion of jazz, Latin, rock, and of course, Celtic styles. While she said she feels free to explore musically with her band, when it comes to the traditional tunes she loves, there is no improvising.
“That whole improv thing is not part of the Cape Breton tradition. In fact, it’s very shunned,” she said. “It’s an unwritten rule: You play the tunes the way they were written. ... and that’s largely why the tunes have survived so many years. People keep them the same.”
MacMaster explains that she takes comfort in the traditional Cape Breton tunes.
“I can play the same way every time and fall deeper and deeper into it, and I don’t know what it is.
“I find beauty in it every time. It’s like a prayer. It’s the same prayer you’ve been praying all your life, but if you reach into the prayer, there’s always beauty in it. If you think about it, you learn something new from it every time you say it. And it’s the same with this music. It puts me in a trance. It really does. I just go into another place.”
Her seventh CD, “Blueprint,” blends Cape Breton traditional fiddling with bluegrass. Joining her are dobro great Jerry Douglas, along with Sam Bush, John Cowan and Bela Fleck, members of the ’80s supergroup New Grass Revival, from which an entire bluegrass subgenre emerged blending bluegrass with rock.
MacMaster said she had never performed with them before, but recording with them was easy: Her Cape Breton rhythms blended perfectly with theirs. It all just worked.
In the past couple of years, MacMaster has slowed her touring from 250 to 100 shows a year. It enabled her to have a personal life. She will be celebrating her second anniversary next month with fiddler Donnell Leahy of the band Leahy.
MacMaster recently has been in the studio, writing new material. She has recorded five tracks and hopes to release a new CD by year’s end.
“This is the first recording I am doing with my band,” said MacMaster. “With all my CDs, we really tried to let the music happen first, let it breathe and go where it needs to go.”
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The festival will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, and from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 18 and 19.
Acts will include on Friday: songwriting contest finals, including performances by judges Tom Paxton, Rod MacDonald and Jack Hardy.
On Saturday: Dar Williams, Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem; Erin McKeown; Ollabelle; Deb Pasternak, Paxton, The Sprigs, Adrienne Young and Little Sadie; John Flynn; Johnsmith; The Resophonics; Cosy Sheridan with Kent Allyn; Diane Ziegler; The VariAsians; Ross Harris, and chantey singing with Lynn Noel and friends.
On Sunday: Natalie MacMaster; Dave Bromberg; Sam Bush Band; Cephas and Wiggins; Mark Erelli; Kim and Reggie Harris; Lucy Kaplansky; Geoff Muldaur Band; Stephanie Corby; Bob Franke; Girlyman; Robin Greenstein; Greg Greenway; T.J. Wheeler and Hatrack Gallagher; Yankee Ingenuity; chantey singing on the Harbor Cruise with Lynn Noel and friends.
Tickets are $10 for Friday; $35 each for Saturday and Sunday or $60 for both days. Ages 6-14, $5 per day. Under 6, free.
For more information and tickets, visit www.bostonfolkfestival.org or call 617-287-6911.
Stephen A. Ide may be reached by clicking here.