Lyle Povah

Lyle is a percussionist/singer/guitarist, children’s entertainer, drum circle facilitator, and teacher with a special interest in African drumming. He travels throughout North America presenting at conferences, leading corporate team building sessions and bringing musical fun, wellness and learning to a wide variety of musical arenas, including health care centres, youth at risk programs, seniors centres, schools, faith groups, detention centres and community events.

He has shared music with kids at B.C.’s Children’s Hospital one day a week for the past 14 years and regularly visits hospitals across Canada and the U.S. For the past 6 years, he has worked with the UBC Sauder School of Business, leading manager training and executive development programs. Corporate clients include BC Ferries, Harbor Properties (Seattle), HSBC, Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals, TD Bank (Toronto), Sun Microsystems, Vancouver Airport Authority and many other companies, universities and banks. Lyle also leads the longest running weekly "drop in" Community Drum Circle in Vancouver, an intergenerational and intercultural musical event moving into its 8th year.

Regularly engaged as an artist-in-residence at local schools, Lyle had the pleasure this past summer of offering a drumming and music program at Zajac Ranch, Canada’s first full time camp for children and youth with chronic or life threatening illnesses in Mission B.C. Various groups such as kids with Down’s Syndrome, Kidney Disease, Cleft Palate, and Epilepsy participated. Most recently he has joined a team of practitioners in Milden Saskatchewan at the Bridgepoint Centre for Eating Disorders, a wellness centre that hosts regular residential retreats. CD recordings include "Just Kidding, after all these years" for kids and "Peace through Music" for adults. He is presently part of a 2 year "Music in Health Care Settings" training program at the Open Ear Centre in Seattle.

Lyle led opening and closing sessions for the Canadian Forum on Arts and Health in Vancouver on March 14/15 and presented a workshop "Drumming into Health - a Dynamic Prescription for Wellness" at the international conference for the Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH), in Edmonton Alberta in June 2005.

He tours the Pacific Northwest every summer, events ranging from week long teaching retreats to summer camps, rafting and drumming adventure to music festivals. Teaching schedule includes Music Exploration for kids 0-5 years, weekly healing drum circles and hand drumming classes.