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Welcome to Roots and Branches Music |
 It's been said that Madeline MacNeil's audiences hold their collective breath as the last notes of her songs drift into the tableau of stages large and small. Since 1972, when she began performing in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, Madeline's goal has always been to bring listeners into the song. Her interest in stories first brought the mountain and hammered dulcimers to her attention, for they are part of this country's musical history and the heritage of other countries before they arrived here. This is part of Madeline's treasure as a performer: she sings and tells the stories with her beautiful voice and exceptional dulcimer skills.
It's been said that Madeline MacNeil's audiences hold their collective breath as the last notes of her songs drift into the tableau of stages large and small. Since 1972, when she began performing in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, Madeline's goal has always been to bring listeners into the song. Her interest in stories first brought the mountain and hammered dulcimers to her attention, for they are part of this country's musical history and the heritage of other countries before they arrived here. This is part of Madeline's treasure as a performer: she sings and tells the stories with her beautiful voice and exceptional dulcimer skills.
Madeline's New England family (she's a first-generation Virginian) arrived in the fishing and mariner towns of Rockport and Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1635, while her Canadian family members came to Cape Breton from Edinburgh in the mid-1800's. She ties everything together: Scotland's countryside, the lives of families separated and brought together by the sea, and the resilience and art of those who settled in the Appalachian Mountains.
It doesn't stop there, though. With merriment in her eyes, Madeline recalls the day a friend asked her what kind of music she'd like to add to her repertoire "down the road." When Madeline answered, without hesitation, that she'd love to sing jazz songs in the style of Shirley Horne and Ella Fitzgerald when she turns 75 or so, her friend replied: "Why don't you start right now!" To this day people ask other fans of Madeline's, "Were you there that evening when she brought the folk concert audience to their feet with her heart-stopping rendition of 'Saint Louis Woman'?" (This reminds one of the question, "Were you at Woodstock?")
Her recording career began in 1983 and now includes more than a dozen independent releases, including tributes to her heritage on Songs Of Earth and Sea and her love of jazz on As Time Goes By. Heart's Ease (classical and Celtic music featuring the hammered dulcimer) won an Indie for string music from NAIRD while Christmas Comes Anew was a finalist for this coveted award. Her recording of "Shenandoah" has been used extensively in Public Television productions as well as part of the Apple Tour in the Winchester, Virginia area.
But the stages, large and small, and audiences remain favorites for Madeline. All of her concerts are memorable, but many are extremely special. Since 1978 Madeline has sung and played the dulcimer for midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at a Trappist monastery in Virginia. The Barns At Wolf Trap has presented her in concert, as have arts centers and universities throughout the United States. Across the Atlantic, she has performed at the O'Carolan Festival in Keadue, County Roscommon, Ireland; the Glasgow Festival of the Arts in Scotland; and for the Nonsuch Dulcimer Gathering in East Norton, Leicestershire, England. For several years she was a touring artist under the sponsorship of the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She's been honored by folk organizations and festivals, and in the late 1980's she received recognition from the Senate Rules Committee of the California legislature for her extensive work in that state.
In 2005 Madeline was recognized as a Content Consultant for an exhibit of dulcimers and their scheitholt ancestors at the prestigious Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia. She performed background vocals for a national Public Television two-part documentary film, To Our Credit. In 2006 Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, featured in To Our Credit, won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in creating economic and social development to help impoverished countries gain democracy and human rights.
She is a best-selling author of mountain and hammered dulcimer books for Mel Bay Publications, and for almost thirty years was the publisher of Dulcimer Players News, a quarterly publication devoted to both hammered and fretted dulcimers.
Thanks for your interest in Roots and Branches Music, and the music of Madeline MacNeil.
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About Madeline MacNeil