Where does a lifetime love of music begin?
For very young kids in our towns, it can begin in the beautiful Maplewood Memorial Library—with “Music for Kids,” a new pilot series of engaging, interactive musical adventures, designed for children 3-to-8-years-old.
In our arts-rich community, there’s a wide-open opportunity to provide musical offerings for our youngest residents. Music For Kids aims to do just that! Children learn the joy of music best when they start early and are actively involved.
The newly reimagined library has plenty of quiet areas, but it also has large, welcoming common spaces like the Community Room. That’s where Music for Kids will happen this fall, one Saturday morning per month, with two 60-minute sessions on each date.
Each program will explore different musical instruments and elements. The programs will be guided and performed by world-class musicians and teaching artists, many of whom live here in SOMA.
Teaching artists and musicians will engage with the audience through lively interaction, such as clapping, counting, and singing, so that kids are part of the musical experience as well as learning about it.
The wife-and-wife duo leading the curation of the series are South Orange residents Lizzie Burns, bassist and teaching artist, and Deanna Kennett, Assistant Director at Carnegie Hall and teaching artist consultant. Details are as follows:
September 20: “Game On! Cello and Bass,” with Caitlin Sullivan, cellist, and Lizzie Burns, bassist
October 18: “Meet Your Musical Imagination!” with Adam Cockerham, lutenist and South Orange resident; Lizzie Burns, bassist; and Rubén Rengel & Katie Hyun, violinists
November 15: “Songwriting on the Spot,” with Mary Amato, songwriter, author, In Tune teaching artist, and South Orange resident; and Tricia Tunstall, music educator and Maplewood Arts Council co-founder/member.
On each of these dates, the program will be presented twice, at 10-11am and at 11:30am-12:30pm. The target audience age is 3-8, but the series is open to all.
Music for Kids is sponsored by The Maplewood Library with the support of an arts grant from Essex County. This series was inspired by a similar program created 30 years ago by Maplewood’s late, beloved community arts pioneer Jim Buchanan. That program had a long and memorable run at the Burgdorff Center from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.
