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Swan song next month for Thunder Bay Celtic festival

The fiddling Schryer triplets will reunite for a performance in Thunder Bay when the Celtic Celebration ends its 10-year run.
Celtic celebration story

THUNDER BAY -- The husband-and-wife team who have been at the centrepiece of Thunder Bay's decade-old Canadian Celtic Celebration are relocating to British Columbia.

That means this year's event, scheduled for June 23 and 24, will be the last at the Lakehead for Pierre Schryer and Merrie Klazek.

Klazek, a performer with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, has accepted a position as Trumpet Professor at the University of Victoria.

She says she and world-class fiddler Pierre are excited about the prospect of new adventures, but leaving Thunder Bay will be bittersweet.

"There really is something about this community that has touched our hearts, and I really mean that...I'm hoping it's not 'goodbye', it's just 'see you later,' " Klazek told Tbnewswatch in an interview on Tuesday.

The Canadian Celtic Celebration began as a touring northwestern Ontario single-concert event 16 years ago, and 10 years ago expanded to a three-day festival based in Thunder Bay.

The final event next month is "going out with a splash," Klazek said, with a reunion of the Schryer triplets. "The Schryer triplets were well-known as fiddling wonders. They were on the Tommy Hunter Show as young kids."

She said the last time that brothers Pierre, Louis and Daniel were together in Thunder Bay was at the age of 13, during the Vickers Heights fiddle competition 30 years ago.

Other headliners will include CBC Radio host/guitarist Tom Power, Irish singer Eimear Arkins, uilleann piper Joey Abarta and Quebec accordionist Marie-Jeanne Brousseau, among others.   

The main event for the celebration is the feature concert at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium on June 24. The Polish Legion on Cumberland Street will host a ceilidh dance the day before.

Klazek said they hope to share the weekend with as many people from the community as possible.

"Thunder Bay is very, very dear to our hearts. This community feels like home now and it will always have that feeling like home."

She added that she and Schryer would like to return to the city at some point to present other shows.





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