April 3, 2001 Summary Facts:
Called “one of Celtic music’s most electrifying performers” by Dirty Linen magazine, fiddler Natalie MacMaster won a Juno Award (Canadian Grammy) for best instrumental album and a Grammy nomination for best traditional folk album for her CD release My Roots Are Showing. For the first time in Santa Barbara, Natalie MacMaster and Her Band, which accompanies her on guitar, keyboards, accordion, banjo and bass, will perform an evening of Celtic Music from Cape Breton on Sunday, May 6 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall. To enhance audience appreciation of the concert, MacMaster will participate in a pre-concert Meet-the-Artists Discussion at 7 pm hosted by bluegrass musician Peter Feldmann, founder of the Santa Barbara Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention. The pre-concert talk, located in Campbell Hall, is open to concert ticket holders only. MacMaster, who often enriches her concert instrumentals with vocals, storytelling and even the step dancing of her childhood, leaves many concertgoers speechless with her authenticity, energy and sheer joy in music making. Her recordings capture her musical excellence and have garnered awards to prove it. Fit as a Fiddle and No Boundaries have both reached gold status in Canada. Her third album, A Compilation, is a collection of traditional fiddle tunes taken from her first two independently released albums, Four on the Floor and Road to the Isle. In My Hands takes Cape Breton fiddle music in exciting new directions, incorporating Latin rhythms and street grooves, and features a host of special guests, including Nashville’s ace session fiddler Mark O’Connor, Canadian guitar virtuoso Jesse Cook and Irish accordionist Sharon Shannon. Alison Krauss also provides vocals on the track Get Me Through December, a collaboration that earned MacMaster and Krauss a Canadian Country Music Award for vocal/instrumental collaboration of the year in 2000. For My Roots Are Showing, MacMaster returns to her traditional Cape Breton heritage; the release captures and preserves many of the most historically important and influential tunes of Cape Breton fiddle music. MacMaster’s other honors include eight East Coast Music Awards, including female artist of the year for 1999 and 2000 and roots/traditional artist of the year for 2000. In addition to recognizing her work with Krauss, the Canadian Country Music Awards named MacMaster fiddler of the year four years in a row from 1997 to 2000. And the Canadian Academy of Cinema and Television recently presented her with a Gemini Award for best performance or host in a variety program or series for her performance on the Juno Awards in March 2000. In addition to her recording and touring career, MacMaster has opened for Carlos Santana and performed with the Chieftains in a concert honoring Luciano Pavarotti. She teaches annually at Mark O’Connor’s Nashville summer fiddle camp. And she has released an interactive CD-ROM and instructional video titled A Fiddle Lesson, both of which are available at concerts and on her website, www.macmastermusic.com. Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, this residency is sponsored by KCBX Public Radio 89.9 FM and is supported in part with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency. For tickets or more information, Editor: For photos, please call |