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Professional Performers Produced By Volunteers

Keri Lynn Zwicker with Emma Lee - Saturday, April 4, 2009

Keri Lynn Zwicker had her humble harp beginnings thirteen years ago busking on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. She has since quietly and steadily evolved into a talented and versatile musician with experience in many different realms - orchestral harpist, ethnomusicologist, chamber musician, Celtic singer, cowgirl harper and street performer - ALL these could be used to describe this harpchick extraordinaire!

Her new CD , Rich and Rare, marks the next solid step in her musical evolution. Co-produced by David Wilkie, this CD showcases Keri's sweet Gaelic-styled vocals and vibrant harp playing. She is backed by some of Alberta's best instrumentalists. Her unique, original arrangements draw from traditional Celtic, Latin and folk repertoire and ensure that her cabon-fiber harp is always the focus - never the frill. From Merle Travis' "Dark as Dungeon" to Robbie Burn's "Highland Mary" to Alfredo Ortiz' "Milonga" to her own original compositions - Keri reveals her eclectic taste and proves how just about anything can get "harpified!"

Keri has been playing music for 25 years. First as a suzuki piano student starting at age 5, then on to the University of Alberta to recieve her Bachelor of Music with Distinction as a classical pianist. For the past 13 years she has focused on the harp. At age 18, just months after buying her very first little harp this eager young musician was out harping on Whyte Avenue in Old Strathcona - much to the delight and surprise of those who passed by. Within a year she had self-produced a cassette "Solstice." Her success led her to busk her way across Western Canada as part of the Fringe Festival Circuit. For a few years Keri had her own outdoor stage show at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival and it was at this time that she released"The Devil's Mill." It's a well know secret that her debut CD and Fringe busking financed her Bachelor of Music studies at the University of Alberta!

Keri Lynn has been a harpist in David Wilkie's Cowboy Celtic since 1998. This high-profile position that has not only taken her across North America and Scotland numerous times but has given her the invaluable experience of performing in front of crowds of thousands at the most prestigious Cowboy festivals like those in Elko, NV, Vail, CO, and Santa Clarita,CA. Keri is probably one of the few harpists in North America that has the opportunity to tour regularily with a band.

This Celtic harpchick is active as a classical musician too - Keri has performed full length solo pedal harp concerts as well as duo concerts with cello, oboe and flute. She has been hired by the best choris in Edmonton, including Kokepelli, ProCoro, Cantillon, Madrigal Singers, Ariose, to perform challenging works for solo harp and voices. She plays second harp with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra but often acts as principal. As well she regularily travels to play with Saskatoon and Regina Symphonies as well.

Keri also excels in the academic realm having completed a Masters degree in Arts with a focus in Ethnomusicology from the University of Alberta. Her major work concentrated on the resurgence of Cowboy music. Her paper "Nostalgia and the Construction of a Cowboy Classic" was chosen to be presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology's Annual International Meeting in 2000 in Toronto.

Keri is active as a private harp instructor at the Alberta Conservatory of Music in Edmonton. Her student ensembles have been on CBC radio, A-Channel Big Breakfast, Global TV and have performed at many venues in Edmonton including on the Winpear stage.

Of course any good harpist has to play alot of background music too. Keri has played at her share of fantastic and wacky events over the past 13 years. From performing for dignitaries to putting out a fire at a wedding ceremony, learning 70's music for a fashion show, playing around a campfire, loading the harp in a float plane, covered wagon, tractor, golfcart, jetboat, forklift - you name it - she's been there and played that!!

Tracks

Sample tracks from Keri Lynn Zwicker are available at Keri Lynn's Web Site

Reviews

Web Site

Keri Lynn Zwicker's Web Site

Opening - Emma Lee

Armed with a voice that transports you, Emma-Lee chose not to rest on this strength alone. She instead put a sincere focus on becoming a great songwriter and the results of her efforts are fully evidenced throughout Never Just A Dream. Her weakness for a great pop melody turns out to be one of her greatest strengths; on Never Just A Dream spectres of AM oldies radio mingle effortlessly with childhood influences like Joni Mitchell and jazz great Ella Fitzgerald, creating a hauntingly beautiful musical landscape at once complex and yet familiar.

Saucy and sweet, pensive and pure, Never Just A Dream offers a candid peek inside the romantic heart. Whether it’s on the epic “Flow”, which chronicles a girl who sublets the apartment of her globe-trotting ex-boyfriend and renders herself at the mercy of his memory, or the soaring “That Sinking Feeling”, with its sting of realization, or in the ragtime bounce of “Jealousy”, which cheekily suggests you get what you deserve for snooping, Emma-Lee deftly captures the many dimensions of love and loss.

Web Site

Emma-Lee's Web Site

Spotlight Series Performance

Remember ... a 3 course meal is available at our Spotlight series performances. See our food page for menu and prices.

Online Tickets are closed. Tickets will be available at the Door

2011 - 2012 Season
Our 31st Season

Kellylee Evans
Feb. 25, 2012

Matinee at 3 pm

Carlos del Junco
with the
Blue Mongrels
March 24, 2012

Fri. April 20, 2012

All Alberata Artists
April 21, 2012
Evening Show

Matinee at 3 pm

Ron Sexsmith
May 12, 2012

Appeared Previously

Catherine MacLellan
Oct. 1, 2011 at 7:45pm
Opening: Youth
Singers of Calgary

Soaring Strings
Oct. 29, 2011

Madison Violet
Nov. 26, 2011