Children’s performance: Timbalooloo

ArtYard and the Frenchtown Bookshop are excited to announce that internationally acclaimed jazz/world clarinetist Oran Etkin will return to Frenchtown with Timbalooloo for an 11 AM children’s performance on Sunday, June 12.

Timbalooloo is an interactive and educational musical party that introduces children to melodies, rhythms, and instruments used by musicians across the globe. Children will join the band, including singing, clapping, dancing, and drumming.

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In Timbalooloo, instruments come to life and speak through their music so that children learn to express themselves not by having to execute the notes on a page, but rather by making their instruments come alive and talk through their music, adding character, humor and emotion to the process. Through fun stories, games and songs, children develop a personal relationship with great culture from around the world — from Herbie Hancock to Tito Puente, Mozart to Willie Nelson. Drawing inspiration from the way children learn languages so intuitively and naturally at this age, Timbalooloo strives to empower children to become fluent and expressive in the language of music.

Timbalooloo is the creation of Israeli clarinet/saxophone player Etkin, whose masterful music has been described as “ebullient” by the New York Times and who is called a “composer of eminent individuality” by jazz saxophone great Yusef Lateef. Etkin performed last fall in Frenchtown at ArtYard’s inaugural Aqualumina Festival alongside Brian Sander’s JUNK in a site-specific outdoor dance performance illuminating refugee narratives and kindling light in a time of darkness and displacement. Etkin’s expressive clarinet led festival-goers on a journey along the Rail Trail as he played in the woods and banks of a creek.

This Timbalooloo party will have two special guests.

The first is master Malian kora player Yacouba Sissoko. The kora is a harp-like 21-stringed instrument often featured in West African music. Sissoko has performed with Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and Leni Stern, as well as a host of well-known African musicians. With his own band, he has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center to the Monterey Jazz Festival.

The second is Etkin’s dear friend Clara Net (his clarinet) who is sleepy and comes to the concert in her bed! The concert will also feature some surprise friends from the percussion family and will involve a lot of interactive elements for the children to join in with Oran and his friends singing, dancing, and drumming!

Masks are required for this performance.