When I appear onstage, that's my departure from Momhood - and I transform into Natalie MacMaster: the entertainer, the fiddler, the performer.
— Natalie MacMaster
Living in Cape Breton, it's really all about fiddle music, so it's not like there were other instruments out there that tempted me and it was like I had to decide which one. It was automatically fiddle, because it's the predominant instrument in Cape Breton Island.
It's quite a job, so to speak, when you can really be with your child for 21 out of 24 hours.
I love jazz and pop rock and country. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Anne Murray - if I hear something really great... I want to be a part of it.
Celtic music will always be around, even if with the mainstream crowds it dies out.
I've been hearing fiddle music since I was in the womb, I'm sure.
There's some places where, I don't know if they're fiddle fans, or Natalie fans or if they just love Celtic music, but there's some places where there's just awesome crowds.
I am a very musical person. I love music, and I don't just love Cape Breton fiddling, although it's my favorite.
'In My Hands,' the title track, is my very first vocal attempt, and I'm not a singer as such. But I've always wanted to express myself vocally on my albums, and I don't really have much of a capability for singing. The strength is in, I think, the lyrics and just speaking. It just comes from inside.
I basically say I'm on tour all the time, because one tour goes into the next.
When you return to the same area a few times, you get that frequent rapport with the public and the fans of the music along with having a certain warmth when you walk onstage.
