November 8, 1999
Web posted at: 5:32 p.m. EST (2232 GMT)

From Serena Yang
CNN WorldBeat Correspondent

CAPE BRETON, Canada (CNN) -- "I've been hearing fiddle music since I was in the womb, I'm sure," says Natalie MacMaster, considered by many to be the premiere female fiddler in this Canadian pocket of Celtic culture. "My mother had this tape recorder going then. I started playing fiddle when I was young.

"Living in Cape Breton, it's really all about fiddle music," she says, "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."

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The fiddle was a natural instrument for Natalie MacMaster to learn. Windows Media 28K 80K

MacMaster, who's been playing the fiddle since age 9, breaks stride with her sixth and latest album, "In My Hands," in which -- for the first time -- she sings, pairing her alto on some songs with country star Alison Krauss' soprano.

"'In My Hands,' the title track, is my very first vocal attempt and I'm not a singer as such," she says. "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."

Ultimately, she says, fiddling is the thing for her -- and not just any fiddling, but fiddling that promotes the Cape Breton style. "That's what makes me unique and I want to hold onto that. It's full of soul, it's full of fire and power and zest and it's so natural and so honest, it's such an honest music."

"And I think we're just very fortunate in Cape Breton. For some reason it's maintained its very traditional sort of sound."

The niece of influential Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster says the fiddle forms the core of any Cape Breton-style music.

"If you took away even the drum section or the rhythm section with the drums and the bass and the piano and the guitar and all that, still the meat and potatoes is all there, just in the fiddle itself," she says. "It's a very rhythmical music and it's so closely associated with the dancing -- those steps are very much tied in with the rhythms pressed into the violin itself. ... It's very much dance music and very much an expression."

Two of MacMaster's records have gone gold in Canada, and she's won her share of music industry awards. Most recently, she was named female artist of the year at the 1999 East Coast Music Awards. And earlier this year, she earned a Juno Award for best instrumental album, for "My Roots Are Showing."

Although her album sales and near-constant touring schedule mean she's one of the most active proponents of Celtic music, she's modest enough to say the musical style doesn't need her to survive. "Celtic music will always be around, even if with the mainstream crowds it dies out," she says. "It doesn't matter if it's a fad or not, it will. It's been here for centuries and it will continue to live and thrive, especially in Cape Breton."