Dan MacDonald: Organically Grown Music

Born in Ironville, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Dan MacDonald grew up with the sounds of his parents and a few of his 11 siblings making music.

- Mary Larsen

It wasn’t long before Dan joined in, learning traditional fiddle music at home and also taking classical lessons. The family formed a band, Scumalash (more on the name later), which toured in Europe and North America and recorded an album. Dan’s father Lloyd played fiddle (he released a CD, Aires in Bloom, at age 80); his mother Winnie played piano; brother Martin (Marty) plays cello and is a conductor; brother Shawn plays fiddle/violin; and brother Paul plays guitar and is a producer of traditional music.

For the past 15 years, Dan has made his home in Toronto, where his fiddling has taken flight. Learning many Irish tunes from the late Prince Edward Island fiddler Kim Vincent, who lived in Toronto, Dan made his way into the local session scene and has earned the respect and admiration of musicians and listeners near and far. Kevin Carr, in a Fiddler Magazine review of Dan’s album Rural/ Urban, described his playing as “always clear, always passionate, always true to its roots, always playful, and always powerful.”

We talked in late August, toward the end of a very busy summer for Dan – one that included music festivals, fiddle camps, sessions, teaching, and a trip home to Cape Breton.

How old were you when you started playing music? Did you start with fiddle?

I was probably 5 or 6, I can’t really remember when I very first started, but it was definitely about that age. I started with fiddle. Well, to tell you the truth, apparently I started with spoons. Way back when I was like 5, my dad and my brother were playing at the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival and somebody caught footage of me playing spoons at the end of the stage with a little red hat on – that was actually part of the ad for the fiddle festival the next year. But I did start formally on the fiddle for sure.