he Corning Civic Music Association is bringing Celtic music power couple Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy to the Corning Museum of Glass on Friday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. And when we caught up with MacMaster for an interview, she was indeed on the move.
"I'm just driving along," she laughed, explaining the occasional rumble of road noise. "I'm in Ontario, just outside of Peterborough, and it is a beautiful, sunny, fall, crisp day." With seven children in the family, a musician’s life often includes the driver's seat.
The program, MacMaster explained, celebrates the distinct musical traditions she and her husband bring to the stage. "Before we got married, well, I'm from Cape Breton, and Donnell is from Ontario, so we both had very distinct styles and different touring careers," she said. "You'll hear us individually. You'll hear me with my Cape Breton traditional music for a portion of the night. And you'll hear Donnell and all the music he got known for through Leahy and his family."
Over 23 years of marriage, the merging of their artistic worlds has been its own creative adventure. "We now have children. We have seven children, actually, some of which will be coming with us," she said. "We will kind of go through the evolution and what we've become musically and through just our personal lives and just exploring music together, which is a whole different can of worms."
Her new book touches on that very challenge. “I just wrote a book called I Have a Love Story. It came out three weeks ago,” she added. “A portion of the book is just dedicated to that whole learning curve of trying to take what you did by yourself for like 25 years, and combine it with someone else.”
MacMaster dove into the rich cultural roots that make their two violin traditions so different. “The Cape Breton style is strongly rooted to the square dancing origins in the area,” she explained. “In Ontario, they play faster. Even if they play similar tunes, there's a different lilt. They don't have the same lilt at all, and their step dancing is different." Even bow technique changes the sound: “Cape Breton, you have a lot of just separate, up-down, up-down, which creates more rhythm. The Ontario style, there's a little bit more slurring, which makes it a little slicker, smoother sounding, but maybe not as driving rhythmically.”
The couple can trace those styles back generations. “My ancestors come from Moidart in Scotland,” she said. “And you can still... have guests come over from Cape Breton Island to share the old ways, the old music that they don’t necessarily have so pure in Scotland this day and age.” Donnell’s family history, she noted, goes back to County Cork, Ireland, with their own musical evolution unfolding after immigration in the early 1800s.
Of course, there is the logistical ballet of touring with a family band. “We do all sorts of versions of ourselves,” she said. “When you take the tour bus, they didn't have any regulations, so we’d take all our family... Now there's seven, so traveling is a bit more cumbersome.” With kids developing their own pursuits, they sometimes perform without the full family. But the children are increasingly part of the show.
“They all play fiddle, they all play piano, they all step dance, they all sing,” she said with clear pride. “It’s been really cool musically, being able to move and grow in these ways... Nothing is stale. It is constantly changing. It’s constantly evolving.”
MacMaster says she’s simply eager to get to Corning and share the joy of that evolution with audiences. “Thank you, and I'm just looking forward to making music on the stage,” she said.
The Corning Civic Music Association presents Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy in their “Four on the Floor” concert Friday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Corning Museum of Glass auditorium. Tickets and more information are available at corningcivicmusic.org.