“My father’s people came to Canada in 1825 from County Cork, Ireland where they were farmers before settling in a little town called Douro,” Leahy explains. Their rich familial history is the stuff of lore. It’s easy to understand why Weyman - and later MacMaster - was so enchanted with the Leahys.
It will be broadcast during the 2019 Christmas season on the BYU network throughout the country so consult your local listings!! Weyman, whose vivid depiction of the touring musical sibs won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Student Film in 1985.
#NATALIE MACMASTER TOUR TV#
The TV special is also a fitting bookend to The Leahys: Music Most of All, a short by filmmaker Peter In it, a spirited performance anchors a wider narrative chronicling the family at home, in their community, and “doing what we normally do around Christmastime.” Meanwhile, the forthcoming 24date Celtic Family Christmas Tour - which contains a soon-to-be-revealed theatrical element that will thrillingly traverse time and continents while contextualizing the music and its players - touches down at marquee venues across Canada, confirming the duo as powerhouses on the seasonal circuit. So the Christmas special is a kind of test run.” “Although we are public people, we are also very private and we were unsure about having cameras in our home and following us around. Fields famously quipped, “Never work with animals or children,” he clearly hadn’t seen the MacMasterLeahy clan fiddling, step-dancing, and positively delighting audiences, something the family’s Christmas TV special, titled A Celtic Family Christmas (after their 2016 album of the same name) highlights.Īs Leahy explains, the family was initially pondering participation in a 13-episode docuseries. “But then one night we put Mary Frances on stage. We worried the expectations might be too much,” Leahy says. “Initially we were reluctant to let the kids perform. That the children were already being home-schooled (MacMaster has a teaching degree) made enacting that decision easier. Rather, the pair realized early on that being on the road without their kids was infinitely harder than touring with them. MacMaster is referring to her and Leahy’s seven gifted children, five of whom are often the showpiece of the MacMaster Leahy live set though not because the couple necessarily envision showbiz careers for the kids, who recently performed (actually knocked ‘em dead) on German TV variety show, Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel. And here I am now doing almost exactly the same thing. “But I was so in awe of Donnell’s family, of 11 siblings who could play and had a family band. “The fiddle was definitely common ground for us when we first got together,” MacMaster, a Member of Order of Canada since 2006, recalls with a chuckle.
#NATALIE MACMASTER TOUR PLUS#
Their synergy was brilliantly showcased on the pair’s first recorded collaboration, 2015’s Bob Ezrinproduced album One, a crowning achievement complementing combined album sales of over one million, a CV listing cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bluegrass star Alison Krauss, and banjo ace Béla Fleck as past collaborators (and Shania Twain and The Chieftains as fans) plus a devoted audience stretching from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Sydney, Australia. Though MacMaster and Leahy followed different trajectories to this point - she a Cape Breton native who could step-dance before she could walk, he the oldest brother of acclaimed family group Leahy - both have confidently crested the traditional music peak. “It has carried me through my childhood, through my teens, my young adult life, my married life and now motherhood. “I’m continually amazed by what the fiddle has brought to my life,” MacMaster offers. They certainly couldn’t have imagined capping off what they jokingly refer to as their combined 83 years as performers with milestones including another hotly anticipated Christmas tour, an accompanying TV special, a pending third instalment of their Greenbridge Celtic Folk Fest, a recent Road Gold Award from the Canadian Independent Music Association, and last but certainly not least, the arrival of Maria, newest sib to Mary Frances, Michael, Clare, Julia, Alec and Sadie. Or that they would produce a large family and ensure their mantelpiece was jammed with JUNO and East Coast Music Awards while creating an inventory of achievements spanning the globe. Indeed, when MacMaster and Leahy married in 2002 - both were already stars in their own right - they could not have predicted their merger would recast what contemporary musical success looks like. The Natalie MacMaster & Donnelly Leahy show has been rescheduled to November 4, 2023.
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