Keri Lynn Zwicker – Alberta

harpists . composer . teacher

Keri Lynn had her humble harp beginnings in Edmonton in 1993. Trained as a Suzuki piano student since the age of 5, she only began playing the harp at age 17 because she desired a more “Celtic” instrument to accompany her singing. However, the harp had much bigger plans for her! After spending two years as a piano performance major in the Bachelor of Music program at the University of Alberta she switched her major to pedal harp under Nora Bumanis, and never looked back! 

Throughout the 1990s, Keri Lynn could be seen busking at festivals across Western Canada. She’d throw her small Celtic harp and vocal amp in her lime green Pontiac Valiant and drive from Winnipeg to Victoria. The last and best event of the season was of course Edmonton’s Fringe Festival where Keri Lynn was a fixture,  busking on Whyte avenue and performing her own outdoor solo stage show. Between donations and tape sales (yes those archaic media!)  Keri Lynn was able to fully fund her university education – now that was the original crowd funding! 

Keri Lynn self-produced her first CD in 1996 – only 3 years after she had started playing the harp. The album was produced by Shannon Johnson , now a June-award-winning member of the band The McDades and was a collection of folk songs. The album, titled The Devil’s Mill  sold over 2000 copies – a rare feat given they were never sold other than by Keri Lynn directly. 

In 1998 Keri Lynn was invited to join David Wilkie’s Cowboy Celtic band; a position that she still holds to this day and a role that has taken her all over the world and placed in her in front of audiences of thousands. Cowboy Celtic toured extensively in the USA from 1998-2017 playing at major music festivals, notably Stagecoach in Palm Springs, Strawberry Music Festival in California, The National Cowboy Gathering in Elko as well a stint on the National Mall in Washington DC representing Alberta during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2006. 

2006 was also the year Keri Lynn acquired one of the world’s only collapsible lever harps, made by John Dorman, whose workshop was located just outside of Edmonton in the city of Leduc. Long before anyone else had used carbon fibre to build a harp, John used his knowledge from his previous career in prosthetics to design a harp he intended to withstand the rigours of flying. What he didn’t expect was the harp to have a deep and resonant tone. Strung from top to bottom with fluorocarbon strings that John acquired from a fishing line company and hand-dyed himself, the harp had a consistent feel and timbre from high to low. With no bass wires, the lower octaves fell and sound the same as the middle. With the capacity to flat pack, this harp became the ideal instrument for Keri Lynn to tour with and to this day this the instrument she plays at all her folk shows. 

Keri Lynn self-produced two more albums Rich & Rare (2006) and Winter Ramble (2007), touring and promoting them with her Harp Rouge trio throughout Western Canada, circa 2006-2014. Her dynamic personality and quick wit would delight listeners and surprise them at how entertaining a harp show could be. Backed by Tami Cooper, flute and Jeff Faragher, cello, the show ranged from fiery Latin instrumentals, ethereal Irish ballads, rocking jigs & reels and “harpified” folk songs.

In addition to her Celtic harp pursuits, Keri Lynn has acted as principal harpist with Saskatoon, Regina and Red Deer Symphonies and is second harp with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.  She has performed with almost every choir and musical ensemble in Edmonton including ProCoro, The Edmonton Winds, Cantilon Choir, Orchestra Borealis and Vocal Alchemy just to name a few. As a guest artist on the ESO’s Lighter classics series, she performed on both concert grand pedal and lever harps. 

She also performs Latin American harp music and with funding from an Alberta Foundation of the Arts grant, she studied Latin American repertoire and techniques with harp master Alfredo Rolando Ortiz in California.

Her full length symphony show, featuring Claude Lapalme’s orchestrations of her original music and traditional arrangements, has been performed in Alberta and B.C. 

Keri is the unofficial musician to the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, her honour, Salma Lakhani, who bestowed her with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medal in 2022. She has performed at Government House for many visiting dignitaries including Princess Anne and the Princess Zahra Aga Khan. 

Since 1997 Keri Lynn has maintained a busy teaching studio, for the first 20 years with the MacEwan Conservatory of Music and now in her backyard studio known as the “harpshack.”After completing her volume 1 harp training in 2018,  she became the first ever Suzuki harp teacher in the province of Alberta. Keri Lynn continued her training, completing volume 2 and 3, also receiving a scholarship from the American Suzuki Institute to attend training held at Stephen’s Point University in Wisconsin. Passionate about spreading the Suzuki method, she organized and hosted Canada’s first ever Suzuki harp volume 1 training event in her home city of Edmonton, which “birthed” 6 new Suzuki harp teachers. 

Keri with orchestra: Wille McIntosh & Glenlivet Keri Lynn Zwicker in concert with the Edmonton Metropolitan Orchestra

Keri with Cowboy Celtic in Elko NV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a19ffqGyDEs

Keri in Tennessee along with an interview:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3pYrtCBIQ

Keri with a dancer at a festival in Edmonton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWxrelfF_ds