Musical, Meaningful Programs for Kids and Families

No matter the time or topic of your musical, meaningful program, Miss Emily will facilitate a Jewish, joyful experience that is engaging and educational for children and families in your community that aims to:

• Invite and inspire participants to experience and explore Jewish values, traditions, stories and songs.
• Support and celebrate the cognitive, spiritual, emotional and physical development of participants.
• Demonstrate to families that Judaism (and, more specifically, your community) is a place to grow and learn as children, parents, and learners.
• Invite and inspire families to come back to your institution or organization as you provide an example of a program that inspires families to make meaning, build relationships, and celebrate Judaism.

If your community seeks to get the most “bang for the buck” in community-building and Jewish education, music is a fantastic choice.

Each program includes:

• A consultation to understand and articulate client goals in order to design an engaging experience to meet the needs of the community and the vision of the organizer
• Marketing materials including branded social media posts and printable flyers/posters
• Sheet music for all songs presented for community’s cantor/music teacher/songleaders
• 10 CDs

Miss Emily’s musical programs are more than ‘just’ a concert.

Today’s Jewish community members might be the hardest to attract and retain in the history of Jewish life, modern society’s consumer culture, an ever-increasing number of paths to involvement and a dissipation of societal pressure to conform to particular cultural norms are only three of the dynamics that have contributed to the challenges that contemporary Jewish communities face.  As such, music is a terrific investment with an incredible value as a tool to engage young children and their families as it offers an easy access point that is attractive because it is fun, familiar, and simple.

A form of differentiated instruction is embedded in music.

Babies in-utero can put their newly acquired hearing to practice, infants can clap and smile, learning about cause and effect as they watch how their engagement delights others. Toddlers can dance to sounds they hear, elementary age children can sing a long while their brains quickly acquire new vocabulary from the lyrics, older students can take videos that they can then edit to prepare to share digitally, and the adults in the room, with their more fully developed abilities can choose to participate in any of these methods and more.

Every participant can simultaneously perceive, benefit from, and respond to the same musical sensory input in whatever way is available and appropriate to them.

Each person can engage with the music, be it through tapping toes, dancing, adding harmony, considering lyrics, playing an instrument or a way that they invent on their own. Participants choose their form of participation, prompting development across domains for all types of learners in various stages of development while connecting with others sharing the sounds. Autonomic, biological responses deepen this connection; hormones surge and heart rates synchronize.

Music in a wide variety of styles and forms has played a prominent role in Jewish life.

The history is long, first noted in Gen 4:21 with the birth of Jubal:

He was the ancestor of all who play the lyre and the pipe.

Upon the foundation of players of lyre and harp, and incredibly rich, practically infinite collection of examples of how, why, and when music is a powerful tool to engage and inspire Jewish community. Music has been a tool that helped Jews face many challenges: without the ability to mass print the words, melodic chanting helped people remember sacred texts, when attendance in synagogue life lagged, musicians were brought into the communities to attract attendance.