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Ashley MacIsaac
Biography
Ashley MacIsaac is, in a sense, the musical representative of the pre-millennial generation of Atlantic Canada. An ardent traditionalist (and cousin of international Celtic performer Natalie MacMaster) with a penchant, nevertheless, for experimentation, this young Nova Scotian native has been taught to play the fiddle the working-class, pub-stomp Cape Breton way: fast, furious, and with phenomenal precision. Alternately considered a rebel, taking the old fiddling conventions in newfangled directions they were never meant to go, or a champion, reforging and re-creating Celtic music with an updated, mass-appeal quality, MacIsaac has unarguably put his own spin on the sounds he was brought up with. This headstrong approach has led to MacIsaac working with an impressive array of talent: David Byrne, the Chieftains, Mary Jane Lamond, and others.

Already considered something of a local legend and prodigy by the time of his impressive 1992 debut, Close to the Floor, MacIsaac was not really introduced to Canadian audiences at large until he released the genre-bending Hi How Are You Today? in 1995. Along with nationwide radio play for the first single, Sleepy Maggie, featuring the dreamlike Gaelic vocals of Mary Jane Lamond, and a regular slot on Canadian video channel MuchMusic, MacIsaac was soon recognized coast-to-coast as something of a minor national icon.
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