Music Together (10 am)

Tuesday
10:00 am - 10:45 am

Music Together is an international early music program for children from birth to 3 years old.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, classes will take place outdoors in our backyard garden, weather permitting. In the event of bad weather, class will take place inside the large Renee Weiler Recital Hall, with windows open, fans circulating, and a capacity of 10 families. All adults and children over two years will be required to wear masks and sit at least 6 feet apart. Dan Vonnegut, our teacher will also be wearing a mask and will sit behind a clear plexiglass shield while singing.

The philosophy of Music Together is that all children are musical, and they can achieve basic music competence provided their music environment is sufficiently rich. Since its beginning in the 1980’s, Music Together has emphasized the importance of having parents and caregivers actively participate in class with their children. This is based in part on the work of early childhood educator Lilian Katz, who noted that while children can learn skills and knowledge from any adult, they learn dispositions only from their loved ones; by participating in class as musical role-models, parents and caregivers help impart to their children the disposition to become lifelong music-makers.

The repertoire of Music Together are the song collections, named Bongos, Bells, Triangle, Fiddle, Drum, Tambourine, Flutes, Sticks and Maracas, forming a three-year cycle taught in fall, winter and spring semesters. Families receive one CD and a code to download all of the songs each semester, along with an accompanying illustrated songbook, to facilitate at-home family music-making. The recordings are professionally produced and richly orchestrated, and feature a “family” of singers, representing a mother, father, child, grandmother and uncle.

Teacher

Dan Vonnegut

Dan Vonnegut

Dan Vonnegut began playing the drums and guitar when he was nine years old. He studied music at University of Miami and Indiana University (where he earned a BA in jazz music and culture). For the past ten years, he