Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy Playbill.Gambrell Center 2024

23-24

EXPLORE. CREATE. CONNECT.

ARTS AT QUEENS: THE SPOTLIGHT SERIES

QUEENS UNIVERSITY OF CHARLOTTE

WELCOME TO THE

SARAH BELK GAMBRELL CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT With it’s opening in February 2020, the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement became a hub for transformational cultural education, experiences, and engagement for our students, faculty and staff, and the greater Charlotte community.

The Sarah Belk Gambrell Center is home to the acoustically gorgeous, 995seat Sandra Levine Theatre, the intimate 150-seat Kathryn Greenhoot Recital Hall, two visual art galleries, eight classrooms, and myriad practice rooms and workspaces for students. Gambrell is the cultural and creative center of campus and is home to academic, visual, performing and literary arts programs, including design and music therapy.

THE MISSION OF THE GAMBRELL CENTER

The Sarah Belk Gambrell Center for the Arts and Civic Engagement is a dynamic arts destination for our community and students to share in diverse cultural experiences. The Gambrell Center facilitates creative scholarship through interdisciplinary collaboration and offers a vibrant gathering place for educational exploration. Queens demonstrates its commitment to this mission by presenting world-class performances, conversations, and exhibitions, showcasing exemplary faculty and student works, and providing an inspiration for design, creativity, and artistic expression.

SARAH BELK GAMBRELL CENTER STAFF

Laura Kratt, Executive Director Kristof Leopold, Technical Director Savannah Deal, Operations Manager Liz Ball, Patron Services Manager Scott Brower, Media Specialist Amanda Mullen, Media Specialist Jane Wiley, Media Specialist Jenna Cartee, Administrative Assistant

704-337-2466 www.arts.queens.edu thearts@queens.edu

The Gambrell Center team programs and manages the Sarah Belk Gambrell Center, provides shared leadership of Arts at Queens and production services to events across campus.

SPOTLIGHT SERIES ARTS AT QUEENS: SPOTLIGHT SERIES presents

NATALIE MACMASTER & DONNELL LEAHY Saturday, March 23, 2024 7:30 p.m.

Sandra Levine Theatre Queens University of Charlotte

ABOUT THE ARTIST 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 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.

“I’m continually amazed by what the fiddle has brought to my life,” MacMaster offers. “It has carried me through my childhood, through my teens, my young adult life, my married life and now motherhood. And I still love it as much as ever. Same with Donnell. It’s unexpected and awesome.” 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.

Their synergy was brilliantly showcased on the pair’s first recorded collaboration, 2015’s Bob Ezrin produced 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

SPOTLIGHT SERIES fans) plus a devoted audience stretching from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Sydney, Australia.

“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. “But I was so in awe of Donnell’s family, of 11 siblings who could play and had a family band. And here I am now doing almost exactly the same thing. Well, kind of.”

MacMaster is referring to her and Leahy’s seven gifted children, five of whom are often the showpiece of the MacMaster/Leahy live set. It’s easy to understand why MacMasterwas so enchanted with the Leahys. Their rich familial history is the stuff of lore. Except it’s absolutely true.

“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. “My father was a beef farmer, we grew up on a beef farm and it’s in our blood. Myself and two of my brothers continue to run and grow the farm.” MacMaster and Leahy point to the 120-acres of ancestral lands in Lakefield, Ontario, as yet another key component of their children’s education and development. “Teaching can take many forms,” MacMaster notes. Of course, the globe-trotting Leahys aren’t exactly like every other cattle farmer out there. “We put our bulls out with the cows based on our tour schedules so we can have people home for calving!”

Leahy howls. “Running the farm is a great counterpoint to life on the road.

Plus, we believe in work and the farm is a wonderful place for the kids to learn through their chores.”

But there’s always room for more music. Ergo, the couple’s launch in 2017 of the successful Greenbridge Celtic Folk Fest, which, for an August weekend each year, transforms the bucolic agricultural hub of Keene, Ontario into a foot-stomping, fist-pumping, string-shredding Celtic ceilidh. “We’ve been talking about the kinds of shows we can do since we got married 16 years ago. We finally decided to start something in our backyard,” says MacMaster, who with Leahy both headlines and curates the Fest. “Plus, we wanted to bring this multigenerational, big-picture celebration of this music to an environment that would really appreciate it. The reception so far has surpassed all our expectations.”

MacMaster continues: “I started playing the fiddle when I was nine, and I never intended to make a career out of it, mostly because I didn’t think it was possible. Even the most adored fiddlers in Cape Breton had day jobs.

And yet here I am.”

“This whole thing — first playing music by myself, then playing music with Donnell, then touring with Donnell and the children and all of us playing music together — has evolved in a very natural way. We feel incredibly lucky to be together as a family and to be letting our children develop their musical talent.”

All because of fiddles. Unexpected and awesome indeed.

ROSANNE CASH SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 2024 @ 7:30 PM TICKETS $50-$75 One of the country’s pre-

In addition to touring, Cash has

eminent singer-songwriters, Rosanne Cash has released 15 albums that have earned four Grammys. Cash is also an author of four books including the best-selling memoir Composed, which the Chicago

partnered in programming with Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Minnesota Orchestra, and won the 2014 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award in the Performing Arts. She is one of only a handful of women to be elected to the Nashville

Tribune called “one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read.”

Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In 2021, Cash was the first female composer to receive the MacDowell Medal for her outstanding contribution to American culture.

WELCOME. SUPPORT. LIFT UP. ARTS AT QUEENS ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP Tickets sales only cover a fraction of the cost of the programs and daily operations of the Gambrell Center. With your annual membership, outstanding concerts, plays, readings, exhibitions, and educational programs will continue to grow. During the 23-24 season, our members make it possible to provide two residencies, hands-on learning experiences and workshops for students attending Queens and the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system.

Won’t you become a member?

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS BY GIVING LEVEL:

Benefits

Student $25

Patron $500$1,499

Benefactor $1,500$2,499

Guardian $2,500$9,999

Producer $10,000 +

Art at Queens ENEWS Invitation to Art/Music/English Events Donor Recognition in Spotlight Playbill Complimentary Drink at each Spotlight Event Premier Box Office Service which features: Advance Ticket Buying Early Concert Notice & Email Updates Can buy GOLD CIRCLE Seats for Spotlight Series Invitation to Annual AAQ Donor Reception Queens Royal Society Membership Access to Spotlight Series Member Lounge Donor Recognition Signage in the Lobby Reserved Parking for Spotlight Events Free Tickets Exchanges & Handling Fees Waived

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO BECOME A MEMBER:

https://engage.queens.edu/register/artsatqueensmemberships24

HAVE QUESTIONS? Please contact thearts@queens.edu 704.337.2466

Your membership gift is tax deductible to full extent allowed by law. Tickets are purchased separately.

Many corporations match their employees' donations through a matching gift program.

If you participate in such a program, please submit the appropriate forms along with your membership form.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF 23-24 ARTS AT QUEENS MEMBERS GUARDIAN Sally and Brian Bridgford

Tamea Price

Sandra Levine

Harriet Seabrook

Sam and Carolyn G. McMahon BENEFACTOR Natascha Bechtler

Claudia and Andy Heath

Georgia and Bill Belk

Carlene and Jack Holder

Kathy and Peter Browning

Barbara Laughlin

Sallie and Derick Close

Kathy and Bill McCollum

Joye D. Blount and Jessie J. Knight

Susan McConnell and Josephine Hicks

Siu Challons-Lipton and Jordan Lipton

Janet Nelson

Dr. & Mrs. Herb Clegg

Susan and Bob Salvin

Daphne Glorian-Solomon and

Emily Seelbinder and Lydia Edsell

Eric Solomon

Ann and Michael Tarwater

Audean and Berkley Godehn

Will and Dorothy Trotter

Jerry and Gaile Greenhoot

Dorothea West and Jim Levesque

Barbara Karro and Bill Gorelick

Martha and Chip Whitfield

PATRON Miki Eide Kathy and Bill McCollum Eric Sklut Mary Claire and Dan Wall

This listing is current as of 1.10.24