The Los Angeles Times describes Natalie
MacMaster as “...a ball of fire, performing jigs and reels with
unstoppable, foot-tapping energy and ba
llads
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.
To
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 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."
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
