Grammy Award

2012 Grammy Win: New Charity Benefit Compilation CD "All About Bullies" Featuring Oran Etkin's Music Wins Grammy Award! Click to see photos.
Oran composed music for two tracks and performs them on clarinet, bass-clarinet and vocals:
Albert (an Einstein) tells the story of a young boy named Albert who is bullied by a girl named Roxanne. The story is illustrated both through Oran's narration of a poem by Steve Pullara and also through music composed, recorded and performed by Oran Etkin on clarinets and bass-clarinets that Oran overdubbed on top of each other in the studio. There is one clarinet that plays a repetitive theme that sounds like it is chanting "Albert", while another clarinet plays a lonely, sad theme on top. Roxanne, the bully, enters the story and is portrayed by the lower sound of the bass-clarinet. A confrontation ensues in both the story and the music, until the narrator (vocals of Oran Etkin), tells Roxanne to stop picking on Albert and that he's "really a good kid!". As Roxanne stops picking on him, the music changes and the same musical motifs that were presented earlier reappear, this time in a major key and a more upbeat rhythm, representing the happiness found by both Albert and Roxanne when the bullying stopped. Oran reflects at the end "sometimes I feel I need to tell people what they're putting others through"
Anna Louder paints a portrait of a bully named Anna, who has to speak louder and louder and be mean just to feel good about herself. The music is composed and performed by Oran Etkin, and he narrates the story by reciting a poem by Steve Pullara told from the vantage point of the child who Anna is picking on. As the poem describes Anna, the music also paints a picture of her various behaviors. The view of Anna is not that she is strong as a bully, but that it is unfortunate that she feels the need to bully and thus looses her friends by treating them badly.

2011 Grammy Nomination: Oran Etkin is thrilled to announce that a side-project he has recently been working on has been nominated for a Grammy! The CD, "Healthy Food For Thought" features tracks by Oran Etkin, Russell Simmons, Moby, Sweet Honey In The Rock and many other great artists and was produced by Steve Pullara, Paula Lizzi, Kevin Mackie and Jim Cravero. It is dedicated to bettering nutrition in school food, with 100% of proceeds benefiting the NY Coalition For Healthy School Food.

Etkin's track on the album, "Unique Monique", opens a window into two sides of his work. The music draws upon elements from Oran Etkin's Kelenia - a project he has with musicians from Mali that won "Best World Music Album" in the 2010 Independent Music Awards. The music slowly builds with a total of eight clarinets and bass-clarinets playing interweaving lines until the last section, where Malian Griot musicians Balla Kouyate and Makane Kouyate join in on balafon and calabash. On top of this music, Oran recites a playful poem that also teaches about healthy eating. It offers us a glimpse of Etkin's work with children through his Timbalooloo organization, which offers music classes for young children based on a new method that Etkin created for developing full fluency in the language of music at a young age. Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Daphna Kastner Keitel and Harvey Keitel are amongst the parents that have endorsed this method and have enrolled their own children in the classes. Timbalooloo is also the umbrella for Etkin's performances for children and his latest CD, Wake Up, Clarinet!, which has won awards from the Parents Choice Foundation, Oppenheim and NAPPA!

Kelenia Videos:      

"Hypnotic Balance of World Music and Jazz" - Boston Globe.
Click Here For More Information About Kelenia

Timbalooloo Videos:      

"immediately connects to a child's imagination" - Edie Falco
Click Here To Learn About Concerts, CDs & Music Classes For Kids!