May 14, 1955 - January 28, 2025
Carolynn Patricia Lengwenat-Cordsen (nee Moul) was born on May 14th, 1955 at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Vancouver, and passed away at Sechelt Hospital on January 28th, 2025 at the age of 69, after a decades-long struggle with health issues. Carolynn embodied perseverance in the face of adversity, resourcefulness amidst unrelenting challenges.
Carolynn composed a great deal of music, conducting her first symphony with the North Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at the Centennial Theatre when she was only 16 years old. She earned her Associateship with the Royal Conservatory of Music, specializing in and achieving the highest mark in Canada for pedagogy, the art of teaching. She had a driving passion for the study and performance of music, but teaching music was her life’s calling, and her life’s work.
After moving from North Vancouver to Gibsons in 1995 to raise a family with her then-husband Sven, she knit herself into the music scene of the Sunshine Coast. After their divorce, she continued to raise three daughters on her own, while continually pursuing her professional career; she served as Vice President of the Sunshine Coast Music Festival from 1999-2007, and as president of the BC Registered Music Teachers’ Association from 2000-2008. She performed with many bands, and was a skillful recording engineer, musical playwright, sound engineer, and music director.
She had a brilliant mind, passions that took her interest from one joy to the next, and was a keen connoisseur of classic literature and film. Trying to fit such a neurodiverse mind into the world was no small feat; ultimately, her struggles to cope were too much for her body to maintain. She sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, but her heart never faltered: she was a beacon of unconditional love and understanding to anyone she encountered. Her compassion and empathy were guileless, a true source of skillful equanimity.
Carolynn is survived by her children Heidi, Amy, and Sarah (and Josh), her sisters Pamela and Kathleen (and Darryl), her niece and nephews Rachel, Tom, and Albert, her father Albert (Moul, and pre-deceased by her mother Grace, nee Allan), and a large family both biological and found. Those who knew and loved her were being taught by her in more ways than they knew, not in music, but in the ways of the heart and soul. Her lessons will continue to ripple out through everyone whose lives she touched. She will be greatly missed.
If love could have saved her, she would have lived forever.
