The Musicalia Story

 

"Success does for children's lives what sunshine does for stained glass!"
(T.Talbot)

Susan created Musicalia in 1993

Before Musicalia, Susan worked full-time as a classroom teacher in the public school system. “Musicalia” was created to bring joy, music and a sense of creativity into our daily life.

Susan becomes Auntie Sue

When her sister had a baby Susan began offering a baby music class just for her nephew on Saturday mornings. The first class started with 3 babies and within 18 months over 80 families were attending classes.

The rest is history as Susan decided to take a leave of absence from the school district and lease a dedicated music space to accommodate the growing children’s programs and her growing musical instrument collection.

Susan-the-teacher becomes Susan-the-entrepreneur

For 9 years Musicalia had a wonderful, cozy home in a small house on Amphion Street, near the Oak Bay border.

Over the years Musicalia grew from a one-woman enterprise to a school with 5 teachers and close to 300 students. Maybe a little too popular! So…Susan recreated her whole teaching scene and went back to working on her own and with fewer families.

Then one day, the wonderful, cozy building housing Musicalia was sold and Musicalia was forced to find a new home.

Musicalia moves to Fairfield

In the fall of 2006, Susan re-opened Musicalia in a new location right across the street from the Beacon Hill Park children’s playground.

The property had an older home for living in and a separate building in the back just perfect for a music studio. The new studio was a beautiful, light-filled space with soaring ceilings and a lovely gardens.

Eventually, living and working in the same space was not quite the lifestyle Susan wanted to continue living. So, the house and studio were sold. Susan and her new husband, Nigel, moved their home back to Oak Bay and Musicalia moved back to a commercial space.

Musicalia moves to Oak Bay

Susan continues to offer Orff-based Music & Movement programs for children, as well as teacher training programs.

Families gather here to dance and sing and play music. We play instruments at every age with or without our parents. By the time the children leave the Maestros and Ensembellas programs they have developed movement and voice skills as well as skills for playing wind instruments, several string instruments, percussion and keyboard.

Wow!