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Family enjoys taking a bow |
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Written by Delon Shurtz
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Friday, August 21 2009, 8:50 PM |
What do you do with four growing daughters to keep them busy and out of trouble?
Well, Loren and Sherry Keister of Chestermere have found the family that plays together, stays together.
But we’re not talking canasta or Scrabble here.
The four sisters, Quinn, 14, Claire, 12, and nine-year-old twins Faith and Paige, play the fiddle. And they don’t just play at family reunions or at home for mom and dad. They play all over southern Alberta and are performing at Whoop-Up Days in Lethbridge.
While mom plays backup guitar and dad manages the group, arranges transportation, schedules performances and generally does what he’s told — “he’s our roadie,” Claire says — the talented youngsters wow audiences with their fiddling, singing and clogging. They also play hand-made wooden spoons crafted out of caragana bushes, and ugly sticks, a traditional Newfoundland musical instrument fashioned out of household and tool shed items, typically a mop handle with bottle caps. A drum stick is used to beat the ugly stick to create a distinctive sound.
“Faith is like a master at the spoons,” Quinn says.
The girls have been performing for audiences, including the hundreds of thousands who attend the Calgary Stampede, for about three years. They put on more than 100 shows last year, and while most of their shows are in the summer when they’re out of school, they play gigs throughout the year and have performances already booked into 2010.
Obviously this isn’t your typical family. While many children try to avoid being seen with parents, the Keister gals enjoy the close bond they have with their parents. While most children are playing video games and hanging with friends, the sisters are often busy practising or performing. And while most siblings fight with each other, these musicians, uh, well, OK, so they aren’t totally atypical, but they have honed their fighting to a science, even when they’re on stage.
“We’ve learned to fight while we smile at each other,” Quinn says.
As the oldest sibling, Quinn was the first to take up the fiddle at the age of six. As her younger sisters grew older, they followed her example and a few years later the Keister Family Fiddlers were born. Their first performance was at a Christmas concert at the Balzac United Church in Balzac north of Calgary, but they’ve since played in Toronto for a leukemia fundraiser, at the Hard Rock Cafe in Niagara Falls and all over Alberta for various events.
And they don’t show any signs of slowing down. In fact, just the opposite. The girls hope to continue performing for as long as they can and Quinn hopes to hear one of their songs played on the radio. Claire wants to produce a CD of their music and Faith would like to go to Nashville in their own tour bus. Paige wants to keep doing exactly what they’re doing now.
“My goal is to play on a big stage with my family for the rest of my life,” she says.
And with four cute girls to raise, mom and dad may have set for themselves the toughest goal of all.
“My goal is to keep the boys away,” Sherry says.
Good luck.
Practising, performing, travelling and sleeping in a trailer while they’re on the road, is not always easy, but the sisters love it. Faith enjoys performing at fairs like Whoop-Up Days during the night so she can see all the bright lights of the midway, and Claire gets a big boost seeing the smiling faces of the audience. Quinn’s favourite part of performing is being able to do it with her family.
“Good answer,” quips her mom.
The Keister Family Fiddlers will perform today at about 1:40 p.m. at the Grandstand, followed by the national anthem at 2 p.m. They will also perform at 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on the Family Stage, and at 7 p.m. on the Gas King Stage in Pioneer Park.
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