After relocating to the city’s southwest in 2008 and finding a lack of activities for parents and toddlers, Colleen Lindenbach did what she has done for decades — filled in the missing notes. The former high school music teacher had an infant son when she and her husband Darryl, former executive director of the Alberta Ballet Company, moved to Calgary. Hoping to find the same kinds of gym and arts activities she’d done with her first son 20 years before, Colleen soon realized she’d have to fill that niche herself.
So, she began teaching music from home, starting with two kids, “and it just exploded,” Colleen says. “It was so obvious there was a need for quality education in the performing arts. I thought I’d either have to stop, because of bylaws, or get a real place.” Fast forward to 2012, and she found that “real place,” opening Music and Play in Aspen Landing Shopping Centre. Enrolment doubled by the end of her first year, which led her to double the studio’s square footage, leasing another space across the hall.
