Blunt little sneakers that light up when you dance are de rigueur at a Vanessa Trien ’91 show. So are pink tutus, OshKosh overalls, and diminutive Red Sox caps. The Saturday morning crowd at the Sheehan School in Westwood, Massachusetts, leaps and twirls and sings along as Trien and her band, the Jumping Monkeys, lead them through kindergarten favorites like her songs “Tickle Monster” and “Bubble Ride.”
Trien, who lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her husband and her children, aged five and nine, didn’t set out to be a “kindie” celebrity, but she’s getting there. (Kindie is independent music for kids.) The singer-songwriter and music educator was a regular on the robust Boston folk scene, performing at iconic small venues like Cambridge’s Club Passim. But the crowds of big people were small—until she released her first CD of songs for small people in 2006.
“I had my first CD release at Magic Beans, a children’s store in Brookline, and people were lining up outside. It was a much bigger crowd than I ever would get for a folk show,” Trien says. “People are looking for kids’ music, and over the past few years a kindie music scene has developed—it’s a national scene, with a lot of people doing this music. Brooklyn’s the hot place, but New England is great too.”
Trien began dedicating her work to children’s music after her son, Ellis, was born. Since then, she has recorded and released three CDs of kindie music—Hot Air Balloon, Carnival Day, and Bubble Ride. Her work has won three Parents’ Choice Awards and five songwriting awards from the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest. She laughingly says her reputation is “semi-national,” with write-ups in Parenting magazine and School Library Journal, and a national distributor for her CDs.
Trien says she loved performing for adult audiences as a folksinger, but her life as an artist really came alive when she started performing for children. “There are some people who feel connected with kids and can communicate with them well and be on their wave length—and it turns out I am one of those people,” she says. “There is such an immediate, visceral response from an audience of small children. They’re not just in their heads—they’re up and dancing and singing along. And the parents are interacting with the kids, and they’re learning together and sharing music as a family—it’s so vital!”
Two years ago, Trien began teaching as a music specialist for the Brookline Early Education Program (BEEP). With BEEP, she’s working with Brookline Access TV to develop programming and songs for an early childhood literacy TV program, Bee Bear Book Club. She also recently cowrote and arranged two songs that will be used in two short music videos on the national website www.education.com as part of their kindergarten math curriculum.
Trien now has a booking manager—something she never had as a folk singer. “She’s been getting me out more,” says Trien, who has played in New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Virginia, as well as all over Massachusetts (and at her Middlebury reunion).
“I want to make another CD,” she says. “Within the next five years my goals are to record more and have more national recognition. I have a few themes that I want to hit on. As my kids get older and have more complicated feelings, it’s not just about jumping and spinning anymore, but also about the complicated feelings kids have as they get older. I want to write about that.”
Meanwhile, back in Westwood, the audience is getting restless. Time for the celebration parade song! One of the Jumping Monkeys climbs off the stage to lead a crocodile of kids around the auditorium, and Trien turns to her drummer. “Take it away, Rico!”