Nova Scotia sisters Cassie and Maggie MacDonald are coming back to Tucson on Wednesday, March 16, for their first live concert since last fall and their first Tucson show in nearly five years.
“We can’t wait to be back in Tucson,” Cassie McDonald said in an email interview. “It’s been a long, cold Canadian winter up here, so a little sunshine will be really welcome.”
Wednesday’s concert breaks the sister’s longest streak of inactivity since they started playing together a dozen years ago and it comes as they are wrapping up the follow-up to their 2016 critically-acclaimed album “The Willow Collection.” “Gold and Coal,” like the “Willow” album, is built on a theme — this time of coal and gold mining.
“There’s such a rich history of music surrounding the gold rush era, especially in the American West,” MacDonald said. “It’s been a really interesting project and we can’t wait to share it with everyone.”
MacDonald also talked about the first time she and Maggie performed live after the pandemic lockdowns, returning to the States and chronicling their journeys through food.
“Food-agraphic” memory: “Maggie often jokes that I have a ‘food-agraphic’ memory and I have to say, I had some of my favorite meals of all time while we were in Tucson. We had never had Mexican cuisine before and, boy, we hit the jackpot when we arrived in town.”
Getting back on stage: “It’s a lot of mixed emotions, honestly, … after so much time of uncertainty, just making it to the stage in the first place feels like the end of the journey, but then the show starts and it’s like no time has passed at all. I think when you’re a musician onstage, you’re really hoping to create a little world where the audience can relate to the music and see some element of themselves in the stories and the songs. Now that we’ve all been through this global event together, it feels a little easier to create that sense of community somehow.”
Back in the U.S.: “It’s kind of full circle for us to be kicking off our spring tour back in the States. Our last show before the pandemic was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on March 16, 2020, so here we are exactly two years later back in America to perform.”
Wednesday’s performance, presented by In Concert, begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway, on the campus of the Arizona Schools for the Deaf and Blind. Tickets are $22 and $24 through inconcerttucson.com.
