Latin Jazz for Little Ones: Assembly & Residency

Assembly and Residency Programs with the Marlon Simon Latin Jazz Ensemble

Marlon Simon has thrown himself into his work with preschoolers with his customary excellence. In this residency, very young children learn about Afro-Caribbean music, much as their older counterparts do. Marlon teaches the workshops solo, introducing the children to the culture and music from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. In the workshops, children learn to dance tangos and cha-chas in pairs. Marlon also teaches preschoolers to divide into two groups and maintain different rhythms at the same time, much to the amazement of teachers and music therapists! This task can be a challenge for school-age children and adults, yet Marlon is able to reach out to preschoolers and help them succeed.

Marlon’s greatest strength with this age group is his ability to engage the students and be consistent in what and how he teaches them. He structures both the workshops and final concert in a highly predictable manner that supports student growth and learning. At the final concert, Marlon is joined by his full ensemble. The students demonstrate the dances they have learned, bringing remarkable style and accuracy in terms of rhythm and direction of the steps. Students also demonstrate the rhythms such as the cha-cha and meringue, playing them on percussion (cowbells, tambourines) with the whole professional band and following cues like the pros! Students also demonstrate a clap-back exercise that increases in complexity over time. The rapport between the entire ensemble and the children tends to be very close, which gives the students a much-deserved sense of pride and achievement.

In some of Marlon’s residencies, preschool staff members have been so inspired that they have gone way above and beyond the call of duty, creating related art projects with the children. At one preschool, the final concert featured beautiful and fanciful decorations by the children that called to mind a tropical rainforest.

Preschool educators express the opinion that Marlon has a magic touch when it comes to reaching the students’ level. At one site, a little boy with ADHD became the star percussionist of the class in the course of the residency. It seemed that the drums helped him organize his own behavior. Marlon has a gift for using language in a sparing yet meaningful way. Throughout the residency, he maintains the focus on the students’ participation, taking them seriously and treating them like the musicians that they are.

Like all other residency programs, this one can be presented as a single assembly to introduce preschool children to the rhythms and sounds of Latin jazz.

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