Monday, May 18, 1998 at 8 p.m., Tickets: $15, $12
Call the San Juan Community Theatre Box Office at 378-3210
For more details, check Natalie's website!
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In fifteen short years, Natalie has gone from performing at local dance halls to bringing down the house in theatres around the world. Her resume includes sold out tours across Canada, the U.S. and overseas. To say she spends nearly as much time in the air as she does on stage wouldn't be far off the mark. So it's somehow appropriate that her travels have resulted in reviews of lofty praise. The L.A. Times, for instance, raved about Natalie's "star quality performance" and "major potential to cross over into the larger pop music market".
While Natalie truly shines with her band, featuring guitar, piano, bass, drums and percussion, she is equally at ease taking centre stage before a full classical orchestra. Then again, there's nothing like seeing Natalie alone, in the footlights, with fiddle in hand, mesmerizing a hushed crowd. It speaks volumes of her talent and ability as an all-round entertainer.
Her profile has been raised significantly over the past few years. So busy is Natalie, that she was forced to turn down an offer as a featured artist in Michael Flatley's Lord Of The Dance production. However, her schedule did allow her to squeeze in a show with Joan Osborne and The Chieftans honoring Luciano Pavarotti at a MusiCares benefit during Grammy Week in New York City.
While it's hard to imagine capturing Natalie's energy on tape, her recordings do a fine job of just that. Her three albums are testament to her versatility and sheer talent as a fiddle player. She doesn't hesitate to ask special guests, such as The Rankin Family and Bruce Guthro, to appear on her albums. And, in what seems like fair play, she is more than pleased to accept invitations from others, like The Chieftans, with whom she has recorded twice for upcoming releases.
Among her recordings you'll find "A Compilation", featuring tracks from her first two albums. This collection, recently released stateside, elicited a review from Entertainment Weekly describing Natalie's music as "gorgeously played...pure and bracing as North Atlantic sea spray". America, it seems, is taking notice.
Other recordings include "Fit As A Fiddle" and "No Boundaries", which recently earned Natalie her first gold record award for sales exceeding 50,000 copies in Canada. All of which paves the way for her upcoming release, "My Roots Are Showing". Recorded in Cape Breton and scheduled for release in March, "My Roots..." promises to take Natalie back to the traditional Celtic melodies that first enticed her to pick up the bow.
When it comes to the awards podium, Natalie is no stranger. In 1997 she won three statues while co-hosting the national broadcast of The East Coast Music Awards. In the same year, Natalie was nominated for a Juno Award and earned a Canadian Country Music Award as Fiddler Of The Year.
Natalie has received plenty of northern exposure as far as Canadian radio and television are concerned. She hosted the award-winning CBC Radio production of Natalie MacMaster's Atlantic Airwaves and appeared on CBC Television's Pamela Wallin Live, The Fifth Estate and Newsworld, as well as CTV's W-5 and Canada AM. And if that wasn't enough, television viewers also caught Natalie fiddling her way through ads for Tim Horton Donuts and General Motors Pontiac.