Catherine Gilbert, MA

Owner - The Lilly Pad, LLC

Hi! I’m Catherine. Nice to meet you. I hope you’re having a great day. I’m a professional musician and the Owner of The Lilly Pad, LLC. Sound is powerful. As a person who works with sound, I admit my worldview changed one day when a Professor of Musicology in my undergraduate studies stated “after this class, you won’t listen to music the same way ever again; you’ll never experience your world the same way again.”

Wow - was that an understatement.

I have a Master of Arts Degree in Socio-cultural Anthropology, Western Musicology, and Music Performance from the University of North Texas College of Music and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the same institution. I’ve been studying and performing music (mostly cello) for nearly three decades. I offer music lessons, music compositions, music for weddings and special events, live sound bath meditations, and have begun recording sound baths and conscious soundscapes for purchase and download. Coming soon!

Today, I help my clients fill their Weddings and Special Events with high-quality music that is tailor-made to their specific needs and requests. I am now offering custom music compositions and am back to offering Sound Bath Meditations. I’ve performed hundreds weddings and special events for my clients over the years, and every one of them is pleased with grins from ear to ear. Three years ago, I started experimenting with various sound healing techniques and have melded my practice of Reiki, musical knowledge and performance abilities together to create intentional and supportive sound healing meditation journeys. I am a Master of Music.

For weddings, I compose and arrange music for you. I won’t just make you listen to my catalogue, I’ll go into my musical cave and create the soundscape you want. Want to walk sown the aisle to “At Last” by Etta James? Want me to sing it and play cello — I got you. Want something more avant-garde like “Gymnopedie” by Erik Satie - I got you there, too. Those are just two examples of the times my clients have made non-classical requests. I enjoy composing and arranging. Moreover, I love giving you the music you want and helping you see the loving grace behind the music we use to hold our most important life events. In other words, the music you chose to ceremonially begin your life with your partner can set the literal tone of your life together. Music and sound are simply that powerful. So let’s work with that! Please note, I hire freelance professional musicians to accompany me when you request a duo, trio, etc….

A little more about my performance history: My performance history is broad, including seats with professional orchestras and symphonies throughout the United States, solo performances, black-box theater compositions, special events, music arrangement, composition, accompaniment of dance and theater performance, and much, much more. I am a musician, leader, teacher, performer, creator, and artist. I have traveled to remote areas of the world to study the nexus of ritual, healing, music, and culture. Most notably is my time studying the language, music, and religious/spiritual ritual practices of the Ewe speaking peoples in the Volta Region of southern Ghana. I learned so much while briefly living and studying in Denu, maybe most importantly how powerful music and community really are; music and community hold healing powers we grossly undermine here in the West. In addition to the myriad performance settings listed above, I was hired to record cello for a folk band in Sylvia Massey’s recording studio in Weed, CA. During that gig, I was offered a permanent seat in a Hollywood music production house. I’ve performed live on stage and all over the country with dozens of bands playing folk, bluegrass, rock, alternative, blues, jazz and world music.

Professionally, I have these epic degrees from a world-renowned music institution that educated 9-time Grammy Award-Winning singer-songwriter and pianist Nora Jones, every member of the Grammy Award-Winning band “Brave Combo” and Don Henley from the Eagles. I’ve performed under the precise and incredibly deliberate baton of the late and great Maestro Anshel Brusilow. I learned to begin mastering my cello from the late Eugene Osadchy. In graduate school, I continued my studies in Cello Performance in Nikola Ruzevic’s Cello Studio. Simultaneously in my graduate studies, I chose to learn the incredibly mind-blowing, poly-rhythmic music of the Ewe speaking-peoples from Ewe Chief, High Priest and Master Drummer Midawo Gideon Foli Alowoie both in Denu, Ghana and at my Alma Mater. In addition, I performed Clave and was a vocal lead in the lively UNT Afro-Cuban Ensemble under the direction of Jazz drummer and Afro-Cuban percussionist (and Master of Time itself) Jose Aponte. I’ve learned from and performed with some of the best musicians in the world, and at the height of their field. As a Cellist, I trace my lineage back to the Eastern European school of thought and practice that includes amazing performers like Matislav Rostropovich and both my mentors; this means I was trained to be expressive and precise, not just precise. Today, I use my classical training as a foundation to build and expand upon. Stay tuned for recordings and .mp3 downloads of my new music in my store! Coming so very soon :)

Looking ahead: The Lilly Pad, LLC is in search of space to offer yoga, massage therapy, meditation, Acutonics, Reiki, and mental health counseling all in one very safe and heart centered space. We’re living in a toxic society, and I am determined to do something constructive and long-lasting about it. We have people hurting in bad ways that cannot access help and end up hurting others. It’s so dumb! There is so much work to do out there. We need one another to get through it and make change; so calling all change-makers - let’s be the change we wish to see in the world (thanks Gandhi) and get the heck after it! Have cello, will travel. Contact me to discuss collaboration opportunities. Everything is welcome here.