Musician Oran Etkin Launches Timbalooloo Soho Family Music Class Space

This January, Oran Etkin's Timbalooloo is celebrating the opening of its first flagship class location designed especially for young children and their families: Timbalooloo SoHo. To celebrate the launch, internationally acclaimed clarinetist, composer and educator Etkin will host a grand opening concert for Timbalooloo SoHo at City Winery on Saturday, January 13 followed by a parade from the venue to Timbalooloo's new Soho space for a special ribbon cutting ceremony. The concert features Etkin's award winning jazz quintet and his instrument friends Clara Net (his clarinet) and her mother Big Mama Tuba and offers a fun interactive introduction to the Timbalooloo Method, in which all the instruments come to life and talk through their music.

Since its founding in 2005, Timbalooloo, which highlights understanding music and instruments from the jazz and world music scenes, has been embraced internationally with performances and workshops at major venues and educational institutions throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. With the opening of this new Soho Space, Timbalooloo deepens its bond with the community where it first got its start. It is part of an expansion of the Timbalooloo program in New York, which also includes home-classes taught by Timbalooloo teaching artists throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan and partnerships with schools such as Barrow Street Nursery School, JCP Downtown, Manhattan Schoolhouse and Midwood Montessori.

In Etkin's view, this new space truly belongs to the community and he invites the families of New York City to help shape its growth and evolution. Etkin said "It is my dream that with the active involvement of parents, children, musicians and artists, the Timbalooloo Soho Space will become a unique bridge between the community of families and the rich and vibrant scene of music, arts and culture in New York." A big focus of the classes is the introduction of a broad range of professional instruments and stories about great music masters from around the world. The fresh space is filled with rare instruments and photos collected from around the world that are used to tell riveting stories about the Samba, Mozart, King Louis XIV of France and the cherry blossom festival in Japan while leaving plenty of room for the children to fill in with their own creativity. One of the subjects of these Timbalooloo stories, Herbie Hancock, recently found out about the children learning his music and invited Etkin to present it in Paris for UNESCO's International Jazz Day.

The opening of Timbalooloo SoHo offers New York families a unique opportunity to experience the Timbalooloo classes with its founder. Etkin, who had reduced his classroom time over the past few years as his international touring has increased, is excited to teach many of the classes in the new space himself and build direct relationships with the families. He will still continue some international appearances, with performances scheduled in Czech Republic, Zimbabwe and France, but he will use these as opportunities to also give the children back home a glimpse into other cultures, bringing back stories, songs and instruments to explore at the new Soho Space. Important to Etkin and at the core of Timbalooloo, is the belief that the immense power of music lies not just in the individual's pursuit of technical mastery but in the joyful and soulful creation of community.

January 2018 kicks off with a strong schedule of classes for various age ranges starting at 4 months old up to 8 years old as well as special classes such as parent-child African drumming and the popular "Growing Glockenspiels" class for ages 4 and up. Visit Timbalooloo Soho at 131 Varick St. Suite #935 and at http://timbalooloo.com/soho-location/ for more information and class descriptions. In addition to the City Winery concert, Timbalooloo is presenting a monthly duo series at National Sawdust in Brooklyn and Etkin will perform with West African musicians at Jewish Museum on Dec 25 as well.

ABOUT TIMBALOOLOO:
Founded in 2005 by Oran Etkin, Timbalooloo strives to fundamentally reimagine the way music is taught and how music can be conceived by children during their early formative years. In the Timbalooloo Method, instruments come to life and speak through their music so that children learn to express themselves not by having to execute the correct notes, but rather by making their instruments come alive and actually speak the language of music, adding character, humor and emotion to the music. This notion of instruments speaking to each other harkens back to Etkin's experiences as a young boy falling in love with the music of Louis Armstrong - a musician who certainly was a master at making his trumpet come alive and express things that words cannot express. Through fun games, stories, songs and movements, the children engage with rich musical and cultural heritage - from Tito Puente to Mozart, Willie Nelson to Herbie Hancock. Celebrity clientele for Timbalooloo has included Leiv Shriber, Naomi Watts, Martha Stewart and Harvey Keitel who raved "Our son was talking about Herbie Hancock, Mozart, Samba and African Music - and he knew the difference!"

Over the years, Etkin has hand selected and trained a core group of Timbalooloo teaching artists. Through their work, Timbalooloo has been taught to over 3,000 children in New York alone. Through Etkin's international touring and recording projects Timbalooloo has reached thousands more children around the world. Timbalooloo music has appeared on several recordings including a Grammy Award Winning Anti-Bullying Compilation and in 2018 Etkin will release a new Timbalooloo album.

WATCH TIMBALOOLOO CLASS TRAILER:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVT0HRVPDK0&feature=youtu.be

Grand Opening Celebration Concert for Timbalooloo SoHo @ City Winery

Saturday, January 13, 2018

10:00AM Doors / 11:00AM Showtime

12:30PM Parade from City Winery to Timbalooloo Soho for Ribbon Cutting

Price: $10 adults, $5 children

Link for Tickets