“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 six musically gifted children, who today are the centrepiece of the MacMaster/Leahy live set though not because the couple necessarily envision showbiz careers for Mary Frances, Michael, Clare, Julia and Alec (Sadie’s only 3). 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.
That’s no small feat when your combined album sales exceed one million when past collaborators include classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bluegrass star Alison Krauss and banjo ace Béla Fleck and when your ecstatic fan base (which boasts Shania Twain and The Chieftains) stretches from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Sydney, Australia. Their first recorded collaboration, 2015’s Bob Ezrin-produced album One, which was followed by 2016’s A Celtic Family Christmas (and which cemented the couple’s status as powerhouses on the seasonal circuit) confirmed MacMaster and Leahy were as dynamic working together as they were working apart. Though MacMaster and Leahy followed different trajectories – she a Cape Breton native who could step-dance before she could walk he the oldest brother of acclaimed family group Leahy – both had assuredly crested the traditional music peak. Indeed, when two of the planet’s very best fiddle players married in 2002, the proverbial mantelpiece was instantly crammed with JUNO and East Coast Music Awards.