ANDRE LEFEBVRE

I always like to know a bit more about artists I encounter online, so here's a bit of info about me. I'm a musician (piano and digital keyboards). I have been playing since the age of 12, the fateful pre-teens where so many lose their voice, despaired of ever being "seen" and "heard" by those who matter most to them. In my case, I began stuttering.

Around the same time, I was also introduced to the family piano by one of my older brother. An immediate passion filled me. I entrusted to the piano playing sessions my inner turmoils and longings, borrowed the instrument's voice, as it were, to express and communicate to others, without ever uttering a word with my mouth.

We all have our own stories... Like everyone, I am sensitive to human sufferings. starting from birth and till my late 40s, I've been through a lot of various and dramatic experiences, which have contributed in crippling my ability to truly enjoy life and succeed as I felt I was "entitled" to.

Until I finally came to accept that I could not continue denying my foundations and expect to heal. To move on, I needed to move in, to inhabit my real self and not just pursue a fabrication of myself that promised harmony and fulfilment, because that was an illusion hiding the same wall and dead-end every single time.

Anyone can express emotions, therefore everyone is creative. Selecting words or actions to express emotions is an act of creative expression. The inherent essential value of creativity is found in its ability to provide us with ways to give others access to an "experience" of who we are, rather than simply give technical information about us. As one who has grown feeling as a stranger in my surroundings, seeking my social identity, the language of the arts has given me the ability to express who I am in a way deeper than words. And to gain understansing of myself through my works.

Art is expression. It is a canvas to process our various realities, past, present or anticipated. Over the years, I've become aware of the journaling aspect of my art, trying to express, with the help of creative expression, what I record of my experience of life. Naming, beyond the limitations of words and reason, that which is perceived beyond words and reason. It flows from a spiritual core of my being. Emotions share the same " beyond words" essence, a language formed in us before we were trained to identify and articulate the concepts and expressions of ourselves with a particular cultural and environmental language. The most ancient dialects we know are those of emotional responses, and probably spiritual awareness. One could say that in a way, emotions are the tastebuds of the soul...

I hope my music to open vistas of hope where despair and isolation has set in. Music also contains a seed of something spiritual, the reaching out of my own human spirit to the Divine… at times, a scream hurled the vast ocean of the unknown, through dark nights of the soul... at other times, a gentle sigh finding rest in the presence of Love, saturated with worship.

These improvisational moments are mostly quietly breathed prayers, as I both play and listen allowing the sounds and concepts that come to me to flow forth into new melodies and ideas. Most of these works, musical, visual, and writings, have successfully weaved with Picture, Dance, Drama, Song, Healing Prayer, Meditation, Worship, Intercession, Spoken Word and Therapy.

For over 38 years, I've played this music as a busker in subways and on street corners, as a survivor in bars and partys, as a passerby in airport and stores, as a seeker in solitude and contemplation, in churches and conferences in Canada - B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec - as well as the USA. Times of contemplative and intercessory prayers are my favorite spots to hang out.

It is my hope that something you read or hear or see on this site will bless you. Feel free to write me, at soulcanvas @ gmail.com.

Healing is a strong dimension of my experience with music and the Arts.

Past events are still with us today as they contributed to form who we are. They have given us insight, strength, wisdom, love, self-esteem, a sense of identity, etc. However, certain traumatic events have overloaded our emotional tank and most of those have been stored in nether regions of our being and seem all but forgotten.


And as life goes on, there is a constant flow of energy diverted toward that pocket of stored emotions to keep it from coming to the surface and overwhelm us again. Rather, what worked then, is put to work every time this memory surfaces: shock, agony, anger, bitterness, rage, hate, unforgiveness, etc. These are often expressed through addictions, self-destructive behavior, toxic relationships, physical sicknesses and health conditions, depression, lack of boundaries, manipulation and control, criminal activities, etc.

Then one day, out of the blue, someone says or does something and we catch ourselves in the act of having again the same inner dialogue. Only this time, it is more than rambling, it is revealing, as we speak we become aware of something very wrong with us. We can become acquainted, according to life's seasons, with these fragments of our selves that are not integrated, but are lingering at different points of interruption. This systemic denial is a defense mechanism that should have been temporary.


More and more, research indicates the very real possibility that a great number of sicknesses and health conditions may, in many cases, be directly related to past unhealed traumas. Unhealed because our response to them was interrupted, because we had probably had more questions than answers, more pain than we could endure, and surviving the moment was everything. Revisiting these can be a major key in opening the door for healing of our body and soul.