Sound CheckFiddler Natalie MacMaster: How she tours with her family
Juno Award-winning Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster has received honours such as the Order Of Canada and honorary degrees from schools like St. Thomas University (honorary doctorate,) Niagara University, New York, and Trent University.
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She is a Canadian icon, but when described as such, she tells Yahoo! Canada Music that her fiddler husband Donnell Leahy likes to use a certain word to sum up his talented wife: "Timeless."
"My husband always says to me, 'Natalie, I think you're a Canadian icon,' and I'll say, 'No,' and he'll say, 'Well, you can not play or do any marketing and you're in your own little world and then you go play shows and they're sold out. You're timeless,'" she explained. "That's what he calls me, 'timeless.' Anyway, I don't know if he's right or wrong but I'll tell you this much, whatever I am, I sure enjoy being it."
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With her extensive touring schedule, MacMaster says that although she hasn't found any steadfast methods to coping with children and life on the road, it's all about being adaptable and knowing what works for your own situation.
"I have no solutions for anything because for us, it changes month-to-month," the 40-year-old musician said. "Depending on who's nursing, who's going to school, who's learning to dance or play fiddle, who needs what [makes you] try to balance everybody's needs. I don't have any solutions or rules that we follow other than we do take it tour by tour, show by show, child by child, month by month."
MacMaster and her husband have five children together, ages six and under, and although they are busy raising a family and maintaining two separate music careers, they will be recording together in the future.
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"Donnell and I are absolutely recording this coming year," she revealed. "We've been married for 10 years [and] it's terrible that we haven't recorded yet but that's our plan this coming year, to record and we're doing a lot more touring together."
She added, "We usually play shows and make them something special that we do on the side, that's kind of our attitude. I've spent the whole year focusing on Natalie MacMaster and then next year we'll have maybe 30 or 40 shows coming up for Donnell and Natalie…I have a running list of stuff for us to record together, but the last time I spent any time on it was a month ago. I have other focuses right now."
One of the main focuses is MacMaster's current tour, which has become a family affair with a few of her children joining her on stage from time to time.
"Mary Frances (6,) plays the fiddle first and then starts dancing [in the show] and she always gets a standing ovation and [is] a big hit, it's really cute actually," she said. "It's more than cute because it means a whole lot to see that and to know that your efforts as a parent are paying off."
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She also said, "Michael is five and he has about five or six fiddle tunes that he's playing now and he has joined us on stage before as well. He has also danced a fair bit on stage, although his [style] is shall we say a bit more 'interpretative,' …and our three-year-old daughter Clare, she is a little firecracker and she's doing really well at dancing with no guidance."
For more information about where you can catch MacMaster on tour, head here.
