Performances + Events
Welcome to the Music Circle: An Insiders' Guide to Music Teaching for Early Childhood
CEPS Office - St. Botolph 231
Click the link above to register.
Artist(s)
Vanessa Trien (M.Ed, Harvard Graduate School of Education) is an award-winning children’s singer/songwriter, recording and touring artist, and dedicated, long-time early childhood music educator. As both a teacher and performer, Vanessa is passionate about creating and sharing joyful, interactive and educational music experiences with children and families.
Beginning in 2023, Vanessa joined New England Conservatory's Expanded Education department as their Director of Early Childhood Education. Synthesizing her years of teaching, curriculum design and teacher training experience, Vanessa is working in partnership with the City of Boston to develop and implement NEC's pilot early childhood music program at six ABCD Head Start and Ellis Early Learning centers in the South End, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan. She is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with NEC to expand early childhood music opportunities to Boston’s youngest learners.
From 2005 to 2020, Vanessa taught caregiver-child group music and movement classes for children ages 0-5, including ten years of the national program, Music Together. From 2011 to 2023, Vanessa taught early childhood music in the classroom with Arts for Learning's Expanding Horizons Through Music Program, Brookline Early Education Program and Cambridge’s Martin Luther King Jr. Preschool. Each program Vanessa has taught employs age-appropriate music learning activities to spark curiosity and the joy of music in young children, encourage social emotional learning (SEL) opportunities, and inspire children to become engaged music makers. To learn more about Vanessa, visit www.vanessatrien.com
Phil Berman is a life-long musician and passionate early childhood educator who believes access to playful and joyful music-making can be a transformational experience for children, families, and communities. He joined New England Conservatory's Early Childhood Music Program as a teaching artist in 2023 and is now working as lead faculty and Program Coordinator for the program. While teaching, Phil also trains other early childhood teaching artists and mentors Teaching Fellows in NEC's Teaching Artistry Program.
In 2012, Phil co-created the Brookline Puppet Showplace Theater’s "Puppet Playtime" series. In 2014, he joined Rock and Roll Daycare as Music Director and ran their immersive music program for seven years. During that time, Phil co-founded Fiddlefox music, collecting, translating, adapting, and publishing 37 collections of children’s songs and folk tales from around the world. Phil has taught early childhood music at numerous Boston-area organizations and early childhood centers and serves as head of music and cultural education at Zibi Consulting Group in Cambridge, MA, providing early childhood centers with professional development and curriculum support. He has studied a wide range of musical pedagogies including Dalcroze Eurhythmics at Longy School of Music, Orff Schulwerk at George Mason University, and Music Learning Theory through the Gordon Institute of Music Learning. Phil holds a BFA in Theater Arts from Boston University.
Phil frequently performs his original music around the Boston area with his Americana vaudeville band, Phil and the Flying Leap. To learn more about Phil, visit www.philandtheflyingleap.com and www.philberman.net
