Oran Etkin has been described as “Ebullient” by the New York Times. His music can be heard
on major concert stages throughout the world and a Grammy Award Winning album, but he is
also equally at home sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a gaggle of children as he
shows them how to make instruments come alive and speak the language of music. Etkin’s
project for children, Timbalooloo, is one of the few young-audiences productions to be
embraced by major theaters and jazz festivals all around the world — from Kennedy Center to
Istanbul Jazz Fest, North Sea Jazz to Shanghai Theater. Now with his latest Timbalooloo
album and live-show, “Finding Friends Far From Home, A Journey With Clara Net” Etkin shares
his love of cultures from around the world with children back home. The alum was recorded
on-location in Zimbabwe, Czech Republic, Turkey and China and tells a story of Clara Net
(Etkin’s clarinet) meeting new instrument friends and creating new music across cultural
boundaries.

The concerts start with a problem… Etkin’s friend Clara (who later turns out to be Clara Net -
his clarinet) fell asleep and came to the concert in her bed! The children help Etkin wake her
up, and Clara Net calls for her mother, Big Mama Tuba, who answers from the back of the
audience with a rumble! Together with the full band, Etkin takes the children on a journey
around the world, exploring different instruments and cultures and discovering how vibrant
global cultures form the backbone of American music and society. When possible, the concert
incorporates projections to help immerse the children into the stories, and a study-guide is
available to schools interested in digging deeper.

Timbalooloo is more than just a live concert. It is a comprehensive teaching method that
started off in New York, but has been embraced internationally, including by organizations like
UNESCO, American Speech Language Hearing Association, and Mladi Ladi Jazz in Prague,
which now trains young musicians to teach Etkin’s Timbalooloo method in Czech public
schools! The method is inspired by the natural and fluent way that children learn languages at
an early age and strives to foster fluency in the language of music in an intuitive and fun way.
Instruments come to life as children conceive of making music as performing the magical act
of making your instrument talk (which is actually how improvising jazz musicians think
conversationally about their music). Through fun stories and games, they learn about great
masters from Herbie Hancock to Tito Puente, Mozart to Babatunde Olatunji. Naomi Watts,
Lieve Schreiber, Martha Stewart, Ken Burns, and Harvie Keitel all enrolled their children or
grand-children in Etkin’s Timbalooloo classes, and helped his organization in its mission to
bring this groundbreaking method to marginalized communities across the US.

Timbalooloo can also be paired with a live performance for adults with one of Etkin’s jazz or
world-music productions, including “Open Arms Project", “What’s New? Reimagining Benny
Goodman” or his environmentally focused “Regeneration” project.