The busy, busy world of fiddler Natalie MacMaster

NatalieMacMasterreturns to the stage at Confederation Centre Tuesday night,performing with her husband and fellow fiddlerDonnellLeahy.

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MacMaster continues to play about 100concerts a year, all while raising and home-schooling the couple's six children.

It's something that is given to you, it's not something you give. Natalie McMaster

"I'm juggling, but the balls are falling all around me!" she joked with CBC News: Compass anchor Bruce Rainnie. "It's hard. I mean, it's glorious, there's nothing more rewarding.

'This type of busy'

"I just know I was meant to do this role, and it's very unique, and it's not for everyone at all," she explained.

The children sometimes perform with their parents, too.

"You don't have to look at me like 'Wow isn't that amazing.' No, it's just the path my life has taken."

When she was younger, MacMaster sometimes played 250 shows a year, admitting she was "tuckered out."

"But I was busy, and I look at that and think, it prepared me for this type of busy," she said.

While MacMaster puts her bachelor of education degree to work with the kids, Leahy farms their property in the Peterborough, Ont., area.

'Our own little world'

"It's our own little world, and we are always reevaluating," she said, noting the rural lifestyle balances their hectic performing schedule.

And she does have help, she stresses. Someone often lends a hand driving the children to appointments and with the gardening. Someone else teaches for half the week MacMaster said, while she performs.

"I can not be any other way, especially when I come to family and music which is what my life is," she said. "It's something that is given to you, it's not something you give. You receive music when you play."

The couple, sometimes called the first couple of the fiddle,playedTuesday night at 7:30 p.m. on the mainstage of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown.

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