Music Worcester welcomes back Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy back to Worcester to perform at The Hanover Theatre on March 9. This will be the fourth time MacMaster has been presented by Music Worcester. Tickets and information for the March 9th concert and all shows on Music Worcester’s season are available at musicworcester.org.
Adrien Finlay, Music Worcester’s Executive Director notes “When we began curating the 2023-2024 season, we quickly realized that bringing back Natalie and Donnell, and their family, would provide theperfect balance. Their amazingly virtuosic fiddle playing, improvisations, audience engagement, and joyous music-making will serve as the perfect complement to the other legends on our schedule this season, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Voces8, Midori, and Chris Thile. Natalie and Donnell embody creating community through music, and that overlaps entirely with Music Worcester’s belief of what the organization should be doing as a performing arts presenter of the 21st century.”
Hearing Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy speak reverentially about the fiddle, which has propelled their dazzling careers since childhood while cementing their status as Canada’s reigning couple of Celtic music, is almost as electrifying as hearing them play it.
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. 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.
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 installment 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.
About Music Worcester
Music Worcester, Inc., originally known as the Worcester County Music Association, for years ran the Worcester Music Festival. Current programs reflect the merger in the mid-1990s of the Festival with the International Artists Series and the MA Jazz Festival. Great performances by world-renowned orchestras and guest soloists, chamber music, ballet, world music and dance, jazz and choral masterworks are hallmarks of Music Worcester’s annual operations. Multiple educational programs currently serve youth and families of greater Worcester: masterclasses by visiting artists, Tickets to Opportunity, Festival Singers, in-school residencies, and the Young Artist Competitions. Integral to Music Worcester’s annual operations, The Worcester Chorus has been part of the organization since the very first concert season in 1858.
Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy will perform at Hanover Theatre on Saturday, March 9th, 2023 at 8:00 PM. For tickets and information, visit musicworcester.org. Hanover Theatre is located at 2 Southbridge St, Worcester, MA.
