Celtic Musician Natalie MacMaster to Perform March 6

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo will present Natalie MacMaster at 8 p.m. on March 6 in the Mainstage Theatre in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

With a talent that remains both raw and wondrously refined, and backed by a band any top musician would be proud of, MacMaster has grown to become the musical face of Atlantic Canada, and continuously stuns crowds around the globe with her feverish fiddling and mesmerizing step dancing. While acclaimed for taking Celtic music to new heights, each album MacMaster releases displays a creativity and range that constantly pushes back the boundaries of the genre.

MacMaster first picked up the fiddle at age nine and hasn't looked back. The niece of famed Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster (with whom she recorded a tribute album in 2005), she quickly became a major talent in her own right. After winning numerous awards for her early traditional recordings, MacMaster's subsequent releases have been boldly ground-breaking and well-adorned with abundant accolades. With albums like "In My Hands," which fused Jazz, Latin, and the guest vocals of Alison Krauss, and Grammy-nominated "My Roots Are Showing," MacMaster has proven time and time again that she is leaving her mark on music history.

Her last release, "Blueprint," combined MacMaster's own musical radiance with the cream of American roots instrumentalists, including Bela Flack, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Edgar Meyer, and won her "Best Female Artist of the Year" and "Best Roots/Traditional Solo Recording" at the East Coast Music Awards in 2005.

Two of her CDs have charted on Billboard's Top 20 Selling World Music charts. Four of her previous five CD releases have been certified "gold" (50,000 +) in Canada. MacMaster's live performances are renowned for their incandescent energy and toe-tapping, rhythmic intensity. She has shared the stage with Santana, The Chieftains, Paul Simon, Pavarotti, Faith Hill, Don Henley, Michael McDonald and dozens of distinguished symphony orchestras, and has appeared on network television many times including Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and "Good Morning America." All of MacMaster's shows resound with what the Los Angeles Times described as "irresistible, keening passion."

In 2002, MacMaster married fellow fiddle virtuoso Donnell Leahy of the famed Canadian band Leahy, and in 2005 the couple were proud to announce the birth of their first child, Mary Frances Rose. Motherhood has barely slowed MacMaster, however, and she has already begun the touring-with-baby experience, with the help of her mother.

MacMaster has a Bachelor of Education degree from the Nova Scotia Teachers College, and has received honorary doctorates from St. Thomas University and Niagara University.

Tickets for Natalie MacMaster are $30, students $20. Tickets are available from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday in the Center for the Arts Box Office and all Ticketmaster locations, including Kaufmann's. To charge tickets, call 852-5000; in Canada, call 1-416-870-8000. For group sales, call 645-6771. For more information, call 645-ARTS. The Center for the Arts is a Ticketfast location. Students (of any school) must present valid student ID at the Center Box Office to receive discount.