The Science of Music
Before we begin, let’s take a moment to dig into the research on the ways in which music can help children grow, learn and thrive. Numerous studies show a direct connection between the development of language skills and music, math skills and music, social skills and music. Music stimulates motor skills development as children move their bodies in response to musical stimuli. Hot topic these days is the “neuroscience of music” with particular focus on the ways in which music stimulates cerebral circuits. Learn more about how connections between parent and child are fostered through music. Take a moment to review the data.
“All done?” Now let’s talk about the Lullaby Project.
In Our Community
Portland’s Lullaby Project was announced in 2017 as part of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra’s “Sounds of Home” series. In their efforts to reach into our existing world the symphony announced it would collaborate with local social services organizations in creating visual arts, short plays and new compositions focused on three topical themes: immigration, environment and homelessness.
One way in which the theme of homelessness was addressed was the May 2018 premiere of Gabriel Kahane’s emergency shelter intake form, a work that has gone on to performances at Oregon’s Peter Britt Festival, San Francisco Symphony and, just this past October, at Trinity Church in New York City. Read the OAW article on Kahane and that work here.
But months before the Kahane premiere the OSO had formed a partnership with Portland Homeless Family Solutions (now Path Home) to begin the Lullaby Project. Shelter, food, stability and safety are keywords with regard to homelessness. But also at risk is the parent/child relationship. And that’s what is nurtured in the Lullaby Project.
The rollout of the Project was given little fanfare although the announcement that Portland singer Storm Large would be a member of the eight member songwriting team raised some interest. Sponsored for the first three years by the Storms Family Foundation it simply – though hardly simple – began. But it finished in such a beautiful way. You can watch that whole first Lullaby celebration here:
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If you have heard a little bit about this project you would probably define it as several songwriters in the Portland area partnering with homeless parents to write songs for their children. But if you have attended a Lullaby Project community concert, like the one coming up on Tuesday, May 13, you realize that lullabies–like this one composed in 2018 by a mother named Heather–can be a powerful way in which parents can express “their love and joy” to their little ones.
That performance of My Little One was sung by Marianna Thielen, co-composed with husband and pianist Reece Marshburn. Say, aren’t they Bylines, one of Portland’s favorite bands? Yes, the very same. But Thielen is also Artistic Director of the 2025 OSO Lullaby Project. She recalled in recent phone conversation with OAW that in the project’s first year she and Marshburn were gigging around Portland clubs and functions when Monica Hayes, at that time the Oregon Symphony’s Community Outreach Coordinator, approached them about this new project. They signed up and have been helping to create lullabies for seven years.
The Lullaby Project was “so brand new to everyone,” recalled Thielen. “We worked with Brandi Tuck at Portland Homeless Family Solutions, met with mothers in a hall at the Portland Unitarian Church where we all just sat in a circle, nervous and wondering what we were getting into. Then one of the moms remarked ‘this is going to mean a lot to me.’ ”
Meaningful
The Lullaby Project has meant a lot to a great many families in Portland. But the concept, the basic design and the inspiration did not start here. It began six years earlier in the intersection of science and compassion–at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx and at Carnegie Hall.
Yes, just as this article began – with science – so did the project. Healthcare professionals at Jacobi were observing that families, particularly younger mothers under high stress, were experiencing difficulty bonding with their children. Following the research, medicine reached out to music. And music–in the form of songwriters, singers, arrangers and the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute–grabbed on.
“Meaningful” is one of the words Tiffany Ortiz used to describe the project in a recent phone conversation with OAW. Ortiz is Director of Early Childhood Programs (newborn–3) at Carnegie Hall. It has been her privilege, she said, to oversee the Lullaby Project for all fourteen years. Ortiz recalls the early meetings: “We were teaching artists and Carnegie Hall staff wondering about how we could work together to help parent/child bonding.” Lullabies were the answer.
The Lullaby Project began as a small pilot program in New York City and showed promise. “It progressed organically in social services and the justice system and as we took root in NY we heard from national partners in other areas. Today we have over sixty partner organizations. It is gorgeous to see it evolve in so many ways,” said Ortiz.
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Community, Collaboration and Creativity
Lullaby Project partners all around the world are offered design advice and workshops by the Weill Music Institute but are encouraged to create programs that work for families and artists in their communities and that can be sustained by local funding. Here’s how it’s done in Minnesota, Hawaii, Alaska and Great Britain:
In Minneapolis in 2017 a long-standing choir, Vocal Essence, helped create lullabies with students at Longfellow Alternative High School, a public school for young women who are pregnant or parenting. In Honolulu in 2016 professional musicians and the Leeward College Hawaiian Ensemble worked with young mothers from Catholic Charities Hawai’i: Mary Jane Home and other parents from the Leeward community to contribute songs. In Anchorage, Alaska it was at Hiland Mountain Correctional Center for women where inmates created and sang songs to their children. The Irene Taylor Trust in Britain partnered with the Royal Philharmonic to bring incarcerated fathers and their children together through music. Listen to a BBC 4 podcast on that project here.
When you attend Portland’s 2025 Lullaby Concert you will witness the musical outcome of collaboration and creativity. But the process–guided by Annissa Bolder, OSO Outreach Programs Coordinator and Robyn Tenenbaum, producer–began months before. And it involves more folks than those on stage. Thielen knows the process well; here’s how it all came together in 2025.
The Process
“Before the creativity begins we attend a Training Day with Brandi Tuck, Executive Director at Path Home,” explained Thielen. “Some of the parents have probably just gone through the worst situation in their life; some families are just newly in a safe space, trying to take it all in.” The creative process will require trust and that begins with empathy and awareness.
March 4 was this year’s Creative Day where songwriters (referred to as “teaching artists” within the Project) met the parents introduced to the project by Path Home and The Family Preservation Project of the YWCA of Greater Portland. This year, said Thielen, two teaching artists met with mothers at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. Sometimes the parents come with ideas; sometimes they don’t know where to start. But the teaching artists encourage the parents with very good basic songwriting advice – tell your story and your song will come to you. Throughout the session there may be laughter, dancing and tears. But at day’s end all creative nuggets – snippets of lyrics, family names, stories, pictures and sometimes a fully developed musical phrase – are now entrusted to the songwriters.
40 days and 40 nights. That was the amount of time this year between Creative Day and Recording Day. Biblical reference probably unintended but holy cow, that hardly seems enough time to set rhythms and construct verses, refrains, instrumental interludes and then hand over the “finished” lullabies to the behind-the-scenes creative team who scored them, this year, for ukulele, two violins, flute, cello, double bass and piano. Whew!
But they made it and Recording Day on April 15 was great fun, said Thielen. “All of the teaching artists, arrangers, Oregon Symphony players. We recorded eleven songs in eight hours.” The recordings are made for the parents and the children and are made available online after they are premiered at the joyous celebratory concert.
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But it is the process rather than the performance that is most important. “We’re seeing,” said Ortiz, “some long-term ripple effects–seeing so many families come back after many years with the kids grown to share how meaningful the experience has been for them” (quoted in this Early Childhood Case Study report).
The ripple also touches the songwriters and orchestra members, many of whom have been returning to write and perform the lullabies since the Project began. Watch their faces as the songs unfold. Here is that 2025 creative team – Portland’s own musicians you already know and love – who will be on stage on May 13.
Members of the Oregon Symphony:
- Peter Frajola, ukulele, violin & vocals
- Zachariah Galatis, flute
- Amanda Grimm, viola
- Marilyn de Oliveira, cello
- Jason Schooler, double bass
- Inés Voglar Belgique, violin
Teaching Artists/Singers:
- Amenta Abioto
- Sarah Clarke
- Bre Gregg
- Marilyn Keller
- Coty Raven Morris
- Stephanie Schneiderman
- Anna Tivel
- Edna Vazquez
- Beth Wood
- Naomi LaViolette
- Marianna Thielen
Arrangers/orchestrators:
Recording engineer: Justin Phelps at Hallowed Halls
Ripples
Attend. Catch some ripples, or start new ones, as artists, parents and the children bond together with lullabies.
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OAW will be back to reflect on the concert event. Watch this space. But below is a list of resources and links to past Oregon Symphony Lullaby performances and, of course, the link for Lullaby Concert tickets. To sign off, here are three of the current Lullaby teaching artists performing in the outdoor Lullaby concert in 2022 singing I Want You to Know composed by AJ’s mother, Karen.
The Oregon Symphony presents the Lullaby Concert on Tuesday, May 13, 6:30 at the Alberta Rose Theater. Tickets and more details are here.
Resources
- Watch Portland’s very first OSO Lullaby Project concert here.
- Enjoy several songs from past Lullaby recordings here.
- Listen to the 2024 Oregon Symphony lullabies here.
- Download the Carnegie Lullaby Journal, a guide to creating your own Lullaby, here.
- Here’s a video about creating simple Lullabies to sing with your child.
- Listen to the 24-25 Carnegie Hall lullabies here.
- A New York Times story about the Lullaby Project here.
- “A Lullaby really can work magic”, NPR Goats and Soda story here.
Conversation