duggup

Artist: Natalie MacMaster
Website: www.nataliemacmaster.com
Playback: mp3/flash
Download?: Yes

Natalie MacMaster is not an unknown, in fact in Canada, she is hailed as a major talent and is internationally recognised as one of the best known Cape Breton fiddlers.

Jazz, bluegrass and other influences add to her style of celtic music and has helped cement her reputation as a musician of depth and skill.

Her mother taught her to step dance at the age of five and the energetic traditional high stepping style of dance is incorporated into her act.

From the Encyclopedia of Canadian Music

MacMaster’s traditional Cape Breton fiddling style is based on a rich Highland Scotland repertoire of 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century airs, strathspeys, marches, jigs, reels, and hornpipes. “It’s not a very common fiddle style,” says MacMaster. “The only place you can find it is on Cape Breton Island. In Scotland, they have lost that style just from competition and cleaning up the edges too much …. The Cape Breton style still has some rawness. I like to call it ‘the dirt’.”

Her current band line up includes Toronto born guitarist Brad Davidge, drummer and percussionist Miche Pouliot, Highland Bagpipes, Small Pipes, Whistles, Banjo player Matt MacIsaac, Cape Breton style piano player and step dancer Mac Morin, and bassist Shane Hendrickson.

Together they play a joyful and lively brand of traditional acoustic music. Try The Fairy Dance from her live sets or Balmoral Highlands from her 1998 release My Roots Are Showing. There are some missing tracks among the samples on offer, but enough survives to taste what this musician has to offer.