Fri Sept 19 & Sat 20, 2008

Phoenix Symphony
225 E Adams Street
Phoenix, AZ

Fri: 8:00 PM
Sat: 2:30 PM
Sat: 8:00 PM

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Natalie will perform with the Phoenix Symphony directed by Michael Christie, Conductor

Group Sales Manager
(602) 999-1157 or
groupsales@phoenixsymphony.org for group discount rates.

Special Seating Requests, accessible seating or aisle seating, and discounted tickets can be reserved by calling the Ticket Office at (602) 495-1999.

Del E. Webb Center for the
Performing Arts
1090 S Vulture Mine Rd
Wickenburg, AZ

Showtime: 7:30 PM
Venue Tel: 928-684-6624

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Natalie MacMaster is one of the most exciting performers today, blending Celtic fiddling and traditional East-Coast music with step-dancing and consummate showmanship. Her recording career has included cross-genre albums like In My Hands, which fused Jazz, Latin and the guest vocals of Alison Krauss, and Blueprint, featuring folk music icons Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer, which won "Best Female Artist of the Year" and "Best Roots/Traditional Solo Recording" at Canada's East Coast Music Awards in 2005, with more traditional offerings such as the Grammy-nominated My Roots Are Showing. In July 2006, Ms. MacMaster was one of the youngest people ever named a member of the prestigious Order of Canada - Canada's highest civilian honor. Her live performances are renowned for their incandescent energy and toe-tapping, rhythmic intensity. She has shared the stage with Santana, Paul Simon, Faith Hill and Luciano Pavarotti. She has appeared with dozens of distinguished symphony orchestras, and on national television programs such as Good Morning America, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

The Los Angeles Times describes Natalie MacMaster as “...a ball of fire, performing jigs and reels with unstoppable, foot-tapping energy and ballads with irresistible, keening passion!” Constantly receiving awards and accolades including two Juno Awards and a Grammy Nomination, Natalie MacMaster plays some of the finest fiddle music ever to come out of Canada. She blends jazz, Latin, Celtic, bluegrass, and country music in a masterful style. Her impressive sound and technique led her to be a featured instrumentalist with such artists as Carlos Santana, the Chieftans, Paul Simon, Luciano Pavarotti, Alison Krauss, and Bela Fleck. With a stage presence as commanding as her music, Natalie and her band of musicians will dazzle and enthrall audiences with their whirlwind music and step dance.

Bluegrass and Celtic music are close cousins, with shared roots dating back several hundred years. But that's not what prompted Celtic fiddling virtuoso Natalie MacMaster to enlist some of the world's top bluegrass pickers-including Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Edgar Meyer-for her latest album, Blueprint. MacMaster, a native of Canada's Cape Breton Island, says her only motivation in choosing guests for the album was to feature the best acoustic musicians she could find. The common thread of bluegrass turned out to be a happy coincidence.

"I gravitate toward quality musicianship-that's what I grew up with," says MacMaster, who earned a Grammy nomination in 2000 for My Roots Are Showing in the Best Traditional Folk Album category.

"Irish music affects me the same way as Cape Breton music because those are the sounds and instruments that I've heard since I was a child. It's the same thing with bluegrass music, which has many of the same sounds and instruments. And, in a way, bluegrass musicians play reels, breakdowns and jigs too, so it's all very similar."

Working in Nashville with producer Darol Anger, MacMaster began assembling a wish list of who they'd like to work with. After recruiting banjo star Bela Fleck and mandolin great Sam Bush, MacMaster and Anger needed to line up a vocalist to sing "Touch of the Master's Hand," a poem set to music written by MacMaster and her guitarist, Brad Davidge. It was only when they settled on singer John Cowan did they realize the connection; Fleck, Bush and Cowan had all been members of bluegrass innovators the New Grass Revival. Douglas, who appears on five of Blueprint's 13 tracks, provided another unexpected link: it turned out that bassist Meyer and guitarist Bryan Sutton had both previously worked with the Dobro master.

"Jerry's the best Dobro player in the world," enthuses MacMaster. "We thought, 'why not start at the top?' He's so versatile and he adapted to the Cape Breton style right away." Adds MacMaster: "None of the musicians were show-offs. They're all just totally devoted to music-no matter what the style-and they were a total pleasure to work with. That was the coolest part of making this record."

That joyfulness is evident on the album's opening track, "A Blast," a series of five rollicking fiddle tunes, three of which MacMaster wrote herself. She also co-wrote "Jig Party" with her bagpipe player Matt MacIsaac and penned "Minnie & Alex's Reel" for her parents. MacMaster's compositional output is at an all-time high. "I'm in a real creative phase right now," she acknowledges. "Every time I sit down to practice, I have a lot of ideas for tunes and usually spend the first half hour just writing them down."

While still fairly new to composing, the 30-year-old MacMaster is already a veteran of her instrument. She first picked up a fiddle at the age of nine and hasn't looked back. The niece of famed Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster, Natalie quickly became a major talent in her own right.

After winning numerous East Coast Music Awards for her early traditional Cape Breton recordings, she began taking Celtic music to new heights with albums like In My Hands, which featured elements of jazz, Latin music and guest vocals by Alison Krauss.

Luciano Pavarotti, Alison Krauss to Mark O'Connor and dozens of world-class symphony orchestras. She's performed on ABC TelevisTo her accomplishments, she's added two Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy) for Best Instrumental Album and several Canadian Country Music Awards for Fiddler of the Year.

She has shared the live performance stage with acts ranging from Carlos Santana to the Chieftains, Paul Simon to ion'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."

For every contemporary album, MacMaster is quick to respond with a traditional one, like My Roots Are Showing. Her last recording, LIVE, was two albums in one: the first disc showcased her whole touring band, including the big-concert sounds of synthesizer, drums and electric bass, while the other featured a down-home Cape Breton square dance with just piano and guitar. MacMaster, who plays with what the Los Angeles Times described as "irresistible, keening passion," thrives in both settings.

With Blueprint, MacMaster is once again pushing the boundaries for traditional music, fusing her brilliant Cape Breton fiddling with the sounds of Banjo, Dobro and Mandolin, as played by the cream of America's bluegrass community.

"Alison Krauss was the artist who first got me listening to bluegrass music," recalls MacMaster. "With this album, maybe I can do the same thing and attract people to traditional Cape Breton music."

August, 2003

www.nataliemacmaster.com