American Youth Harp Ensemble Artistic Director and Founder Lynnelle Ediger-Kordzaia has seen her dream of a high-caliber harp ensemble grow from infancy to maturity. Under her leadership, the AYHE has established and enjoyed an international reputation for musical and educational excellence.
Mrs. Ediger-Kordzaia has been an invited presenter/performer at the World Harp Conference, American Harp Society National Conferences, the International Folk Harp Conference and the International Harp Therapy Conferences. She is a recipient of the Governor’s Citation for Excellence in the Arts and has twice been named a “Top Forty Under Forty” by arts and business publications in Virginia. Most recently she was honored with the American Alliance for Performing Arts Educators 5th Annual Del Keiffner Award for Outstanding Arts Educator at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the Teresa Pollak prize for “Excellence in the Arts” from Richmond Magazine, and was the recipient of the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award in Music Education from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. She holds an undergraduate degree in harp performance and a graduate degree in music education from Oberlin Conservatory of Music where she was a student of Alice Chalifoux. She also holds a masters degree in arts administration from Goucher College and is pursuing a doctorate in music education from Boston University. Along with her husband, orchestral conductor Alexander Kordzaia, she owns the Academy of Music, a Central Virginia's leading classical music school.