Make Music Day Arrives In West Haven

Tammy Theis-Satterlee, family engagement coordinator at the West Haven Child Development Center, and drummer Moises Vazquez. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Musicians canceled at the 11th hour, so tap dancers jumped in to play percussion with their feet. The afternoon vocalist was out, but mellifluous versions of “Baby Shark” and “The ABC Song” filled the air to raucous applause. And when the organizer had to leave unexpectedly, a neighbor stepped in to close things out with the hokey pokey.

For anyone watching, the inaugural Make Music West Haven went off without a hitch. Behind the scenes, it told the story of a polyphonic, intergenerational community coming together to keep the rhythm going.

That was the scene—and the sound—at Old Grove Park Tuesday afternoon, as Make Music Day arrived in West Haven for the first time ever in its 40-year history. For over two hours, families gathered at the park, filling the space with joyful sounds of bucket drumming, tap dance, and impromptu karaoke from knee-high vocalists. The brainchild of artist Zohra Rawling, it received support from ArtsWest CT, Musical Intervention and the West Haven Child Development Center, which became an early partner on the project. 

Bucket drumming.

Held on the summer solstice each year, Make Music Day is a worldwide, day-long celebration of music that first came to New Haven in 2018. It is based on France’s decades-old Fête de la Musique, a celebration of music conceived by France’s then-Cultural Minister Jack Lang in 1982. Unveiled in Paris that year, it has since spread to over 120 countries and 1,000 cities, including New Haven, Hartford, Meriden, New London, and West Haven. As it grows in Connecticut, CT Folk has been working to take it over.

“I love summer and I love that we get to celebrate it together,” said Elinor Slomba, the president of ArtsWest CT, as a gaggle of young kids gathered around a single microphone and speaker. “I love that people are into it. And I love that we were able to improvise.”

Improvisation was, in fact, the order of the day. Prior to Tuesday afternoon, Rawling—herself an opera performer, and the founder of the vaudeville revue Madame Thalia—had organized a lineup that started mid afternoon, and lasted through dusk. West Haveners and longtime colleagues and friends of hers had jumped out of the woodwork, from Sara Lemieux and Lee Mixashawn Rozie to George Page, a mainstay of Connecticut’s tight-knit Irish folk scene.

“Tap is the perfect representation of musicality and dance,” Zaneta Nicholson told attendees.

So did teachers, including those from the West Haven Child Development Center. For weeks, students there have been working with drummer Moises Vazquez and Slomba to learn about percussion, and rehearsing a reading of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” set to Vazquez’ drumming.   

This week, it was all set to go. But then Tuesday morning, low storm clouds rolled in, swollen and dark with rain. When the sky opened early in the day, Rawling started hearing from musicians who were worried about the safety of their instruments. By mid afternoon, only Vazquez and students from the West Haven Child Development Center remained on the lineup.

From the moment attendees arrived at the park, none of that mattered. As Vazquez set up a drum beneath the park’s bathhouse, students gathered around Tammy Theis-Satterlee, family engagement coordinator at the West Haven Child Development Center. Vazquez leaned in chest first, and the drums became a steady, reliable pitter-patter. Theis-Satterlee pulled out a well-loved copy of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,” its spine nearly gone, lifted it high, and began to read.

West Havener Shana Melendez with her daughters, four year old Indya and seven year old Amina. They are holding empty medicine containers repurposed into percussion shakers. 

As she turned the bright pages, kids read along, some lifting handmade shakers and swaying to the drums. Standing around the structure on all sides, parents, grandparents, teachers and relatives applauded their way into summer.

Listening to the music with her daughters Amina and Indya, West Havener Shana Melendez said she was grateful for the outdoor activity, particularly after the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic. At home, both girls like to make music, dancing and singing to themselves and to each other. Indya, who is four, is a student at the West Haven Child Development Center.  Amina, who is seven, said that she likes to sing because it makes her feel good. 

“I think it’s a wonderful thing!” Melendez said. She added that the event gave her a chance to connect with other parents.  “They’re [the kids are] just free and able to be creative.”

Top: Elinor Slomba, cultura convener. Bottom: Dabar Ratupenu and Dirmy Mack.

Across the grass, ArtsWest CT volunteer Dabar Ratupenu walked kids through blue bucket drums—overturned plastic buckets transformed into percussion instruments—as their peers tried a steel pan set up on a nearby table. A graduate of High School in the Community and Southern Connecticut State University, Ratupenu said he has long loved music, and was able to tour Italy as a member of SCSU’s choir shortly before the pandemic shut the country down. He now works as an employment specialist at Marrakech, Inc.

Turning the buckets over on the grass, he found a pair of wooden sticks and demoed a drumbeat. Students, most of whom were between three and five, burst into smiles; a few grabbed their sticks and started without prompting. One lifted the sticks gleefully in the air, and then brought them down. Beside Ratupenu, fellow volunteer Dirmy Mack led the group in a game of musical “Simon Says.” Each order—particularly “Simon says gooooo!”—was met with jingling peals of laughter.

Slomba later praised the national Make Music Day organization for providing the funding for drumsticks and earplugs.

Every so often, the hard-edged, deep tinkling of the steel pan came through the clickety-clack of wooden sticks on buckets.  It met the strumming of a ukulele and tap-tap-bah-dum of small feet just a few yards away, where kids stepped onto two wooden boards and tried out rhythm tap for the first time. Watching their newest recruits, dancers Zaneta Nicholson and Megan Ciarleglio cheered them on. Both have been dancing for over two decades each. 

Zaneta Nicholson and Megan Ciarleglio thrilled with tap.

“Tap is the perfect representation of musicality and dance,” Nicholson told attendees as kids queued up to dance with her. “It goes with any genre. You don’t even need shoes. Just move your feet, feel the music in your soul, and you’re good to go.” 

The dancers looked around, and realized the bathhouse was empty. With the stage suddenly quiet, Nicholson and Ciarleglio set two large wooden boards down in front of the structure. A member of ArtsWest CT and Matchbox Theatre Company, Nicholson said she got involved in the event earlier this year, after hearing about Make Music Day and thinking that rhythm tap “would be a great addition.”

Taking the stage, she and Ciarleglio communed a conversation in a series of footfalls, hard landings, outstretched arms.

As they retreated from the stage, children turned to the mic and speaker, and began to sing. Slomba, who had been buzzing around, watched as students cycled in and out and hung nearby in case they needed help. Every so often, a child would leave the line to give her a hug. Back in line, they cheered each other on, with high-pitched shouts of “you can do it” and “yes!” when a classmate turned shy at the last minute. 

Parent Rich Gerdes (pictured above) watched as his daughter Emma cautiously approached the mic, reached for it with both hands, and started guiding listeners through numbers one to ten. She got to eight before something else caught her attention and she walked away. There with his sister, Mona, and mom Lydi, Gerdes said he’d heard about the event from his wife (he pulled out a several page itinerary that she had given him). He praised organizers for pulling it together.

Watching them, Theis-Satterlee proclaimed the day a success. Months ago, she first had the idea of a percussionist in residence at the Child Development Center while she was on Zoom with colleagues from around the state, and saw a hand drum in the background.

“I said, ‘I want in on that!’” she remembered with a laugh. Working with Slomba and ArtsWest CT, she brought in Vazquez to teach kids about percussion instruments and drumming. The West Haven Public Library also became a partner on the project, donating empty containers that the Center upcycled and repurposed into percussion instruments. 

A steel pan demo was also part of the activities.

Only once they were learning to drum did one student bring up the fact that the instruments—particularly the sound of a palm against drumskin—happened to sound a lot like the beloved children’s book “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” A reading-meets-musical collab was born.

Tuesday, she looked around the park, taking in the number of pint-sized drummers, tap dancers, and newsy minted singers making their way through the space. As she spoke, Mark led another round of “Simon Says” on the bucket drums. At the boathouse, a line of young artists had formed for an open mic. The lyrics to “Baby Shark,” and the chorus of BTS’ “Smooth Like Butter” rang across the grass. The Make Music Day party showed no sign of stopping.

“Music is the building block of communication and social and emotional skills,” she said, adding that she sees it as a form of reciprocal learning. “There’s so much opportunity here to have communication without language.”

For Rawling, who is a parent and musician herself, that togetherness was part of the point. After having to leave unexpectedly around 6 p.m., she deputized flutist and fellow West Havener Anna Luther to lead the hokey pokey. As the backing track bounced over the pavement, Luther put her right elbow out and took it to town.

“People were so happy,” Rawling said afterwards in a phone call Wednesday. “I’ve been getting a lot of compliments in it from families … they're been so isolated and this was a chance for them to come together.”

Learn more about Make Music Day here.