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      in Music

      How Ella Jenkins Revolutionized Children’s Music

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      Over seven decades, she brought a world of genres and ideas to songs for the young. On her centennial, what she would really like to do is perform again.When Ella Jenkins began recording young people’s music in the 1950s and ’60s, her albums featured tracks that many of that era’s parents and teachers would probably never have dreamed of playing for children: a love chant from North Africa. A Mexican hand-clapping song. A Maori Indian battle chant. And even “Another Man Done Gone,” an American chain-gang lament whose lyrics she changed, turning it into a freedom cry.“She found this way of introducing children to sometimes very difficult topics and material, but with a kind of gentleness,” said Gayle Wald, a professor of American studies at George Washington University and the author of a forthcoming biography of Jenkins. “She never lied to them. She certainly never talked down to them.”Jenkins’s unorthodox approach became a huge success: She is the best-selling individual artist in the history of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, surpassing even such stalwarts of the label as Woody Guthrie and her friend Pete Seeger. A champion of diversity long before the term became popular, Jenkins helped revolutionize music for the young, purposefully encouraging Black children.Jenkins at a Grammy ceremony where she received a special honor.R. Diamond/WireImageIn addition to introducing global material, which she often recorded with children’s choruses, she wrote original, interactive compositions like “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song,” now part of the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.“Before Ella, very few people actually composed for children,” Wald said in a video interview.You might think that Jenkins, who will celebrate her 100th birthday on Tuesday, would now want to relax and savor her many accolades, among them lifetime achievement awards from both the Grammys and ASCAP, the music licensing agency, as well as a designation as a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellow. But in a brief telephone conversation from her home in an assisted-living center in Chicago, she seemed unconcerned with plans for her centenary in the city, which include a Tuesday morning celebration with young students from the Old Town School of Folk Music, and a showcase on Wednesday with performances by children from Kids on the Move Summer Camp.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      The Broad Appeal of the Elsa Dress from “Frozen”

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      Wearing a costume from “Frozen” in daily life has become a pastime for many children who identify with the character, regardless of gender.Dressing up as Elsa, the blond queen with magical powers from Disney’s animated film “Frozen,” wasn’t necessarily Jeff Hemmig’s idea of a good time.​​“It was well outside of my comfort zone,” Mr. Hemmig, 43, said.But he knew it would make his son, Jace, happy. So Mr. Hemmig, who lives in Killingly, Conn., squeezed his shoulders into a dress his mom made for him, which matched an Elsa costume she had made for her grandson. Mr. Hemmig then performed a rendition of “Let It Go,” choreography and all, as Jace watched.“He loved it,” Mr. Hemmig said. “He was filled with joy.”Mr. Hemmig wasn’t thrilled about wearing the dress: He said it was tight in the armpits and it made him feel vulnerable. But he loved how it delighted his son, then 3. “Seeing Dad do it, too, felt like a big moment,” Mr. Hemmig said.Like the Hemmigs, countless parents have gone to great lengths to satisfy their Elsa-obsessed children since “Frozen” was released in 2013 and became the cornerstone for one of Disney’s most successful franchises. And Mr. Hemmig is far from the only father to dress as Elsa with his son.Such instances have happened enough that the actor Jonathan Groff, the voice of the character Kristoff in “Frozen” and “Frozen 2,” thanked the films’ directors at a 2022 event for “creating space for young boys to dress up as Anna and Elsa,” the franchise’s sister protagonists.Jacqueline Ayala had been a preschool teacher for five years when “Frozen” came out, and it quickly infiltrated her classroom. For a time, Ms. Ayala recalled, there was only one Elsa dress in its dress-up chest. “That’s why the kids started wearing their own costumes to school,” she said. “So they wouldn’t have to share it.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      ‘The Spark’: How Irish Kids Created the Song of Summer

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      Think you can stop what they do? I doubt it.It started with the beat, Heidi White said.On a March day at The Kabin Studio, an arts nonprofit in Cork, Ireland, Heidi, 11, and a group of other children were trying to write a rap with the help of Garry McCarthy, who is a music producer and Kabin Studio’s creative director. It was part of a weekly songwriting program.“It’s a safe space for young people in the community to come create music, hang out and just to make bangers,” Mr. McCarthy said.On this day, the group was trying to write an anthem for Cruinniú na nÓg, a government-sponsored day in Ireland devoted to children’s creativity, scheduled for June 15. Everyone was feeling a little shy and the ideas weren’t exactly flowing, Heidi said.“Then Garry had put on a drum-and-bass beat, and suddenly it was like a switch flipped and everyone started getting involved,” she said. “It was like magic.”That infectious beat has also captivated viewers around the world. The group’s song, “The Spark,” has become a sensation on social media, hailed by some on TikTok as an early contender for song of the summer. (This isn’t the first time a tune made for social media has been praised as such. See here: A 2023 earworm about margaritas.)What could have easily sounded grating to adult ears — think Kidz Bop — is instead unrelentingly catchy. The song’s accompanying music video, which culminates in all of the kids rapping, loudly, in unison on the top deck of a bus, is utterly charming.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Darryl Hickman, Prolific Child Actor of the 1940s, Dies at 92

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      He was in “The Grapes of Wrath” and other films. As an adult, he was seen often on TV. He later oversaw daytime programming at CBS and taught acting.Darryl Hickman, who worked with top directors as a child actor in the 1940s, shifted to television roles in the ’50s, and succeeded Robert Morse as the star of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” in the early ’60s, died on May 22 at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 92.His wife, Lynda (Farmer) Hickman, confirmed the death.Mr. Hickman viewed himself as a character actor, never a star, during his childhood in Hollywood.“I was happy doing what I did,” he said on a panel discussion moderated by Robert Osborne on TCM in 2006 with three former child actors, Dickie Moore, Jane Withers and Margaret O’Brien, all of whom he acknowledged had been stars, unlike himself. “I knew I wasn’t in their category.”In 1940, when he was 8, he beat out dozens of other actors for the part of Winfield Joad, a brother of Tom Joad (played by Henry Fonda), in “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Ford’s adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel about an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family of tenant farmers who join a fraught journey to California.Mr. Hickman recalled being on a darkened set watching Mr. Fonda shoot his farewell scene with Jane Darwell, who played Ma Joad, in which he tells her, “Wherever you can look — wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.”“I knew I was watching great acting,” Mr. Hickman said in an online interview. “It was so simple and so real and so honest and so truthful and not acted at all.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      A Night to Remember at the Opera, Complete With a Phantom

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      In the pitch-dark auditorium of Rome’s Teatro Costanzi, a high-pitched lament floated from the top galleries. Dozens of flashlights snapped on, their beams crisscrossing crazily, seeking the source of the sound.The shafts of light homed in on a spectral figure — a slim, dark-haired woman dressed in white, moving at a funereal pace and plaintively singing. In the audience, 130-odd children, ages 8 to 10, let loose squeals, some gasps, and one “it’s not real.” Several called out “Emma, Emma.”The children had just been told that the Costanzi, the capital’s opera house, had a resident phantom. No, not that one. This was said to be the spirit of Emma Carelli, an Italian soprano who managed the theater a century ago, and loved it so much that she was loath to leave it, even in death.“The theater is a place where strange things happen, where what is impossible becomes possible,” Francesco Giambrone, the Costanzi’s general manager, told the children Saturday afternoon when they arrived to participate in a get-to-know-the-theater-sleepover.The children reading clues of a treasure hunt.Alessandro Penso for The New York TimesMusic education ranks as a low priority in Italy, the country that invented opera and gave the world some of its greatest composers. Many experts, including Mr. Giambrone, say their country has rested on its considerable laurels rather than cultivate a musical culture that encourages students to learn about their illustrious heritage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Television

      ¡Vámonos! Dora Is Back for a New Round of Exploring

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      Boots, Map, Swiper and Backpack all return too, in a new “Dora” that includes a lot more Latin music and Spanish language.Barbie isn’t the only childhood heroine experiencing a renaissance. Yet unlike the doll of last year’s blockbuster movie, the next pop-culture star who’s about to re-emerge isn’t a statuesque blonde in stiletto heels. She’s a pint-size Latina with sturdy sneakers and a trusty backpack.Welcome back, Dora.Nickelodeon, the network that in 2000 introduced “Dora the Explorer,” the groundbreaking bilingual animated show about the adventures of a 7-year-old Hispanic girl, is now rebooting that hit series, which over eight seasons aired in more than 150 countries, winning multiple awards and inspiring two TV spinoffs and a feature-length film.The new show’s catalyst “wasn’t necessarily that the first series was over,” Valerie Walsh Valdes, a creator and executive producer of “Dora,” said in a video interview. (“Dora the Explorer” continues to stream on various outlets, including YouTube.) “It was, ‘OK, how are we extending it, how are we going to grow her? And what’s the next iteration?’”On Friday, Paramount+ will release a full season of 26 streaming episodes of the new show, which is titled simply “Dora” and which will also air internationally on the Nick Jr. channel. (Select episodes will be on YouTube as well.) An accompanying podcast, “Dora’s Recipe for Adventure,” will expand the little girl’s exploits into the culinary sphere.The 2024 “Dora” combines old and new. The series retains all the core characters — Dora; her sidekick, the monkey Boots; her talking tools, Backpack and Map; and her antagonist, the thieving fox Swiper — while featuring them for the first time in computer-generated animation. The show still focuses on expeditions that teach problem-solving strategies and social skills, but Map now has some high-tech capabilities. Dora and Boots continue to embark on missions to find lost objects or aid friends in a magical rainforest, but the quests are faster-paced: Each “Dora” episode is now an 11-minute story. And, significantly, the series will incorporate a greater breadth of Latin music and more Spanish language for Dora.Ten-year-old Diana Zermeño voices Dora in the new show, while Kathleen Herles, who played her in the original “Dora the Explorer” series, has returned to voice Dora’s mother.Paramount+We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      5 Children’s Movies to Stream Now: ‘Soul,’ ‘Luca’ and More

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      This month’s picks include a space adventure from Richard Linklater and two critically acclaimed tales from Pixar.‘Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood’Watch it on Netflix.Stan (Milo Coy), a Texas fourth grader, is rounding the bases while playing kickball at recess one day when two NASA agents pull him off the playground to tell him they’re sending him to the moon. This being 1969, in a world before Apollo 11 took flight, Stan’s new mission is an extremely big deal. The agents, played by Glen Powell and Zachary Levi, tell Stan they were impressed by his science papers and by the fact that he won a Presidential Physical Fitness Award “three years running.” They need a kid to test an “accidentally smaller version” of the lunar module immediately, and so Stan is sworn to secrecy as he prepares for space. It’s tough for him to keep the training and planning from his mother (a droll Lee Eddy) and father (Bill Wise), and his gaggle of siblings, but he tries his best to act like a regular kid while covertly preparing for a lunar landing.The writer-director Richard Linklater uses similar dreamy rotoscope animation as his earlier films “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly,” and this nostalgic tale is narrated by Jack Black, who tells the story from the point of view of a grown-up Stan. The wall-to-wall narration and lack of fast-paced action may not hold every young viewer rapt, but older kids with a thing for space might fall under the film’s spell.‘The Willoughbys’Watch it on Netflix.Tim (voiced by Will Forte), Jane (Alessia Cara) and comically creepy twins both named Barnaby (voiced by Seán Cullen) are magenta-haired siblings who have the worst parents. Their mother (Jane Krakowski) and father (Martin Short) are selfish, narcissistic and neglectful. The couple sees their brood as a pure nuisance. The Willoughby kids devise a scheme to send their parents away on vacation in hopes of finding new parents who actually feed them.That might sound dark, but the cast and the writer-director Kris Pearn (“Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 “) bring so much humor, wackiness and heart to the film that it never feels like a downer. The story is narrated by a paunchy blue Cat (Ricky Gervais), and Maya Rudolph voices Linda, the kind nanny who watches them when their parents leave. Terry Crews plays Commander Melanoff, a loving, lonely bloke who owns a candy factory.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      Paper Bag Players Celebrate 65 Years of Making Magic Out of the Ordinary

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      The children’s theater company will bring its latest production, “It’s a Marvelous Paper Bag World!,” to stages in New York this spring.What fun can you have with plain brown grocery sacks and empty cardboard cartons?Preschoolers know how to derive joy from these objects (as does any curious cat). But perhaps the best way to appreciate their magical potential is to watch the Paper Bag Players, a New York City children’s theater company that thrives on turning the ordinary into the unexpected.Families can experience that transformative power on Sunday, when the nonprofit troupe presents “It’s a Marvelous Paper Bag World!” at the Kaye Playhouse in Manhattan. (They will also perform in April at the Jewish Museum and SUNY Orange in Middletown, N.Y.) The production consists of 13 musical skits tailored for audiences ages 3 to 9, and it celebrates a milestone that any performing-arts organization would envy: the company’s 65th season, making it one of the longest-operating children’s theater troupes in the nation.“At the heart of our theater is making imaginative use of materials,” John Stone, the players’ executive director, composer and music director, said during a group interview with the company’s principals.The troupe’s devotion to paper and cardboard, from which it has devised sets, props and towering characters, dates to its earliest days. In 1958, its founders, who included the dancers Judith Martin and Remy Charlip, began to experiment with simple objects. Over the years, the raw materials have expanded to include foam board, Tyvek and household tools like mop heads.Clockwise from bottom left, Brenda Cummings, Jan Maxwell, James Lally and, in the bed, Judith Martin, in “Cookies” (1984).Ken HowardThe new production, “It’s a Marvelous Paper Bag World!,” includes the 1991 skit “Lost in the Mall,” starring actors wrapped in cardboard.Martha Swope via The Paper Bag Players“We take our inspiration from them,” Stone said of children. “Then we’re making our own sorts of things with them in mind, or with their kind of play in mind. And that gives it back to the kids. And it’s an upward spiral of inspiration.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More