Lila Music Centre was created in 2007 to serve our community from the heart with professional calibre music-making and education.
Lila is an ancient Sanskrit word. It combines our concept of play with the cosmos itself. Lila is creating, destroying, re-creating, delighting in the moment, and spontaneously acting from the source: love.
The initial vision behind Lila Music Centre was a place for meeting the self and meeting others - through musical play. Located in our heritage house on a working farm acreage, Lila has become an active hub of ongoing learning and teaching. As well as ongoing vocal and guitar lessons, family music classes, and choirs, we offer a wide spectrum of workshops including guest teacher events. Performances, improvisation sessions, and community music celebrations define life at Lila.
Cari Burdett lives through music, as anyone who has spent five minutes with her immediately understands. Her life’s path winds through a garden of music studies and teaching, performance, and experimentation.
STUDIES
Cari has complemented her impeccable formal education with further independent studies, for a total of over sixteen years of professional music training.
Following her graduation from McGill University (Montreal) with her Bachelor of Music in Opera Performance with Winston Purdy, Cari moved on to the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, where she completed her Master’s degree in Voice Performance. Her main teachers where Penelope Mackay and Joanathan Papp. She studied a varied repertoire with a focus on new music and composers Mahler, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Britten. Cari’s Master’s degree was designed in collaboration with working composers, giving her the very unusual accomplishment of giving world premiers of several new works, notably Shouts for Herodias: a Melodramatic Scena for solo voice, by Thomas Hyde. She earned many honors, awards and scholarships in the pursuit of both degrees and is fluent in Italian, French and Swedish, with hints of German & Russian.
As she became a mother, Cari undertook an in-depth study of musical learning and teaching. She wrote her master’s thesis on using music improvisation for the development of the self. Cari became deeply motivated by the importance of movement and music for children and adults, because of their gifts of coordination, intuition, and the freedom to experiment. Her journey through this endeavor was based on the work of her mentor, Par Ahlbom from Solvik Skola. While in Sweden, Cari studied with Ahlbom for 4 years and returned to continue on this path for two more summers. The teaching models Ahlbom developed in his career as a teacher, composer, improvisation master and student of Anthroposophy strongly influence Cari’s musical practice and her engagement with her students.
Cari’s training and teaching also draw consciously from twelve years of in-depth ballet training and musical theatre experience, and eight years of study in the Alexander Technique. These components add depth to her integrated understanding of health and movement in the body as they relate to the freedom to make music.
PERFORMANCE
A compelling mezzo-soprano, Cari mixes dashing personal energy with her brilliant voice and delivers something special. Her passion for contemporary music and opera translates into truly unique vocal performances. Her vivid presence and singing garnered her star reviews for her London performance of the role of Baba the Turk in Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress”, and most recently, Carl Jenkins' 'Stabat Mater'. Equally at home on stage with early music, Cari has also been highly praised for her interpretations of the operatic roles of Monteverdi and Handel, as well as Baroque choral works of Handel and JS Bach. Currently, Cari is inspired to be singing again after a pause for family life and is studying privately with internationally acclaimed sopranos, Nancy Argenta and Ingrid Attrot, while performing more and more.
IMPROVISATION
Cari’s ongoing practice of music improvisation is the third leg of her musical life. First, as noted, she spent almost six years in training with master teacher, composer and musician, Par Ahlbom, in Sweden. Her in-depth studies in movement, music, and social development with Ahlbom have shaped her musical vision. Cari’s other major improvisation mentor is Rhiannon, based in Hawaii. She was recently selected by Rhiannon to participate in a group of only sixteen artists from around the world, to participate in All the Way In, an advanced year-long improvisation certification process to train singers in her vocal improvisation method.
TEACHING
Back in B.C. after living in Jarna (Sweden), Sardinia (Italy), London, and Montreal, Cari and her husband Massimo created Lila Music as a centre for their continued musical exploration and an offering to their new community. Cari relies on over a decade of music teaching as together, they:
- teach voice and guitar
- lead choirs
- give workshops in North America and Europe
- teach parent and child music classes
- work with groups using music improvisation and social games.
- offer students exposure to practices of musicianship, musical theatre, recorder, music history games and more...
... all while raising their two growing girls and baby boy.
As a result of her rich musical life path, Cari embodies a vast repertoire of musical styles, methods and expertise. Her goal with her students is to use this deep background of knowledge and skills to lead students to joyfully and successfully learn and appreciate music. As a teacher specializing in voice, she uses a broad range of songs for choirs and private students, while always focussing on applying her knowledge and experience to help foster a healthy voice.
An informative and playful interview about Cari's work released Dec 2010, in Rhythm of the Home, an inspiring parenting magazine focussed on Waldorf Education. Check out the article HERE.
Massimo Pintus, guitarist, teacher, and instrument maker, says: “We are made of music. Music makes us.” One look at his story will tell you where his conviction comes from.
When Massimo was a five-year-old boy in Sardinia (an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea west of the “boot”) his teenaged uncle used to play guitar. Encouraged by their grandfather, one day he was playing a romanza - an anonymous, traditional Spanish piece - and it hit little Massimo like a wave. He did not immediately pick up a tiny guitar. However, the seed that was planted by that wave of music must have taken root, because in his young adulthood, he turned to a guitar for orientation, self-knowledge, and survival.
When he moved to England at the age of 19, Massimo taught himself to play as a way of expressing his being in a place where the language was, as yet, a mystery. Having left all friends and the known universe behind, he immersed himself in a hungry self-taught study, and his playing advanced quickly. Using the beautiful record collection in the family, which contained everything from Led Zeppelin and David Bowie to classical music, he taught himself how to read tablature. Massimo soon was making music with a band (including a son of Ringo Starr). When he left it after a few years, he found himself in a dilemma: what to do without a band? Music had become a calling without a replacement, and adventures followed. Inspirations led him to Spain to learn flamenco, and beyond.
He soon returned to England to study music, but rather than pursuing this in an institution, he ended up charting his own course into the spiritual and esoteric qualities of music. Massimo feasted and explored in the libraries of London and spent every free moment playing and listening.
These explorations led to music improvisation in groups, and his abiding passion for “social music”. He became a regular host of improv sessions and came to see musical improvisation - play and invention - as a way to discover deeper levels of awareness in oneself, and furthermore as a way to deeply communicate with others. A beautiful thread of the universal qualities of music ran though his community and experience at this time. The beginnings of music therapy were happening around him, and he took advantage of the multicultural spectrum of music in London. Indian music, Sufi music - every colour of music - was being explored, and it all was clearly related.
Massimo met a composer name Par Ahlbom while using his tailoring skills to create costumes for a theatrical production. This man spoke Massimo’s language: he brought new instruments to play with and a robust musical appetite. They toured Europe together for six years, playing all “new music instruments” as a group called Gahun. (Massimo says that just tuning up was a musical education.)
After a long-term residence in Sweden, growing a beautiful family, and much more musical learning, Massimo has settled in Duncan and converted guitar instruction, Werbeck singing, instrument and sound-sculpture crafting, and sound healing into a rich vocation.
EARTH - FIRE - METAL - WOOD - WATER - AIR
Gaia Tone Instruments are custom instruments and artworks
for music, meditation, relaxation, ritual, soundscape, and art
From the elements of this earth can come sounds of heaven.
Whether you consider there to be five elements, as Chinese civilization has seen things for thousands of years, or whether you gravitate towards the four traditional elements of European memory, Gaia Tone Instruments is a place where it all comes together to create something altogether different. You could almost call artisan Massimo Pintus an alchemist.
Earth Offerings
Pintus offers a stunning range of one-of-a-kind musical instruments and musical artworks. A unique guitarist and guitar teacher, Werbeck Singing Method vocal teacher, musical improvisation adept, and community music-maker, Massimo is also a skilled and powerfully imaginative woodworker and metalworker. At his home forge and workshop in the beautiful Cowichan Valley on southern Vancouver Island, he creates:
Playing With Fire
In his forge on his working farm acreage on the edge of small-town Duncan, Pintus works in iron, copper, and bronze. Elemental iron and copper both have a sonic resonance that’s readily available when manipulated and formed with attention. The two are very different from each other and deeply affect Pintus in his labors. Where iron (associated with Mars) makes sounds that seem to go far out into the cosmos and return from that vast space, copper (aligned with Venus) is embracing and bound to our planet, and its sounds seem to circle down and around us.
Massimo clarifies that these are the original qualities he finds at the first step of his creative journeys in the forge. All the choices he makes - from size to the many impulses and judgements made while working the material - determine the piece’s pitch and the flavor and impact of its sound. working with iron is enlivening - strengtheningworking with copper - it’s malleable and soft - but it takes a lot of energy, you need to soften it with heat
Labor of Love
The source of Pintus’ impulse to begin forming a piece is clarity of mind and warmth of heart. “I want my instruments to be healing. I bring a loving mood to the instrument, while hammering it on the anvil. It looks like a contrast, but it is not. It’s vigorous but loving.”
Massimo actively cultivates his forging and building process as a mindful process: a creation meditation. His method is to build a constant flow of a particular energy into every piece. Each work is made within the flow of Pintus effort to carry and visualize a certain energy or intention. In many ways, that intention is part of how the voice of that instrument or sculpture is felt by anyone who hears it. In this way, a meditation of material creation becomes yet another meditation in a client’s hands.
A Whole Greater than the Sum of its Parts
A single gong, cymbal, or metal rod may sound a mindfulness bell in a quiet corner of your home, meeting room, or meditation hall. A sculptural installation may sing in the wind and chime in the rain on a garden path, lend its fascination to an office foyer, or give unique beauty to a central area of a home. Pintus’ creations create good vibrations and make bold statements on their own. But they also play well with others!
Imagine a small commissioned glockenspiel. Of course, it can be loved in a solitary way, but it can be chimed to sound the call for dinner time. It can deliver the tune of a child’s bedtime tucking-in ritual. It can be played by siblings and families and friends together. It can become a tiny centre of musical creativity and interpersonal interaction in a school classroom. It can nurture play and harmony between people and in daily transitions. All that from a little glockenspiel... can you imagine what a set of gongs might be capable of?
Pintus sees his creations as nurturing social music instruments. From finger cymbals to a sound-sculpture installation, they invite play and experimentation, and expand our relationship with music beyond a habitual passive consumption to a willing participation and exploration. When more than one person steps into play with sound, we have connection and improvisation, which requires a deep listening and engagement. He posits the captivating possibility of an installation of sculpture and/or instruments that could only be played fully by more than one.
Please look here for more information.
Also go to www.gaiatoneinstruments.com
Lila Music Centre is located on three acres of Cowichan Valley farmland where we have chickens, alpacas, sheep, cats, and visiting cows and dogs. We practice organic, biodynamic and permaculture gardening. Throughout the year we host W.W.O.O.F.ers (willing workers on organic farms), who are usually young travelers from European countries, and other workers. These wonderful visitors assist us in various farm and gardening tasks as well as our ongoing building projects. Our family enjoys meeting people from abroad and we are grateful for the tremendous help we have received over the years. We feel privileged to have discovered such a sweet way to grow food and grow community all at once.
For more photos and video click here