To answer a question that comes up at gigs...
Posted on March 19, 2010 with 0 comments
March is a very busy month and a lot of fun! We finally have lots of sun back in the Bay Area and I’m outside as much as possible, enjoying the weather very much. I’m very excited about my Paris trip, which is coming up in about 10 days.
Sometimes at gigs people ask me about my family and our background. It’s a wonderful mix of cultures (Native, Latino, African-American, Filipino, and European), languages, and food! We’re a big family, with five generations living in California, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. I have three siblings, and there are 11 grandkids, 18 great grandkids, and two great great grandkids (with a third on the way). The main languages (not everyone speaks all of them) are English, Gwich'in, Spanish, and French. My siblings and I are half Hungarian and half Russian, but we don’t speak either (our cousins speak Hungarian). So, depending on who is cooking where, dinner can include anything from caribou stew to lumpia to crêpes to alcapurrias to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with lots of Hungarian side dishes. My dad loved rhythms from all over the world and incorporated many into his children’s music. He also loved to cook and often made Russian dishes.
My family owned a wholesale import/export company that bought primarily from Japan and later from China, India, and other Asian countries. My grandparents, who started the company and lived close by, always had foreign business colleagues over for family dinners, which I loved to attend because I got to see all sorts of different traditions.
I remember one time when I returned home from living in France. My sister also arrived from Mexico, where she was living at the time time. Our older brother arrived with many visitors from his village in Alaska. There were so many people at my parents’ house that we were using table cloths for blankets, but it was such a great gathering.
So, what I do with and for kids with my programs comes from all the music I heard and played growing up and from my multicultural family. I hope that this helps to answer the question about my background! Oh, and my kids are half British!
Sometimes at gigs people ask me about my family and our background. It’s a wonderful mix of cultures (Native, Latino, African-American, Filipino, and European), languages, and food! We’re a big family, with five generations living in California, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. I have three siblings, and there are 11 grandkids, 18 great grandkids, and two great great grandkids (with a third on the way). The main languages (not everyone speaks all of them) are English, Gwich'in, Spanish, and French. My siblings and I are half Hungarian and half Russian, but we don’t speak either (our cousins speak Hungarian). So, depending on who is cooking where, dinner can include anything from caribou stew to lumpia to crêpes to alcapurrias to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with lots of Hungarian side dishes. My dad loved rhythms from all over the world and incorporated many into his children’s music. He also loved to cook and often made Russian dishes.
My family owned a wholesale import/export company that bought primarily from Japan and later from China, India, and other Asian countries. My grandparents, who started the company and lived close by, always had foreign business colleagues over for family dinners, which I loved to attend because I got to see all sorts of different traditions.
I remember one time when I returned home from living in France. My sister also arrived from Mexico, where she was living at the time time. Our older brother arrived with many visitors from his village in Alaska. There were so many people at my parents’ house that we were using table cloths for blankets, but it was such a great gathering.
So, what I do with and for kids with my programs comes from all the music I heard and played growing up and from my multicultural family. I hope that this helps to answer the question about my background! Oh, and my kids are half British!