Kimberley Holmes

Inducted in 2019

A native of Carroll’s Corner, Nova Scotia, Kimberley Holmes began playing piano at the age of five and then took up the fiddle in 1984.

She is one of Canada’s premiere piano accompanists in the traditional style of fiddling and has also won awards as a fiddler herself.  Kimberley has toured with such artists as Graham and Eleanor Townsend, Richard Wood, Calvin Vollrath and April Verch, among others.  She has been accompanist on a long list of recordings by such artists as J.P. Cormier, Gordon Stobbe, Ray Legere, Calvin Vollrath, Richard Wood, Tara Lynne Touesnard and Jocelyn Bourque, to name only a few.

Kimberley has been the house accompanist for over 20 years and artistic director of the Maritime Fiddle Festival for several years.  She has also been the house accompanist at Kirk Logan Old Time Fiddling Contest for a number of years.

Kimberley has taken part in the annual concerts at the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Camp in Ottawa, Ontario, and has been part of several concerts at the Celtic Colours in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, along with such artists as Calvin Vollrath and Phil Cunningham.  She also helped with the Tribute to the Cape Breton Symphony at the Savor Theatre in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

Kimberley’s musical skills include guitar, accordion, mandolin, ukulele and banjo.  She has been a staff member at the Fall River School of Performing Arts since 2005 where she teaches piano and fiddle to all ages.  She is an instructor at fiddle camps and workshops across Canada such as the Maritime Fiddle Association Annual Workshop, fiddle camps for the Canadian  Grand Masters, several camps through western Canada - most notably Camp Calvin, and was the first piano instructor at the Gaelic College in 1991. 

In 2003 Kimberley received the Tara Lynne Touesnard Memorial Award and was prize winner as a duet fiddler three times at the Maritime Fiddle Festival.  She has appeared on ATV’s Up Home Tonight show and is pleased to have appeared several times on CBC’s Maritime Fiddle Festival.

Kimberley has performed at numerous house concerts and festivals as part of the Bb Sisters duo, which received an ECMA nomination in 2012, and is now performing with TIPSY 3 who have recently toured Germany and Switzerland.