The Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and Joyful Sound Productions present See It, Sing It, a weekly participatory music series for caregivers and babies, newborn to crawling, on view November through May December 2026 in the CAC Gallery and Studio Classroom.
See It, Sing It embraces what happens when art and sound meet in the same room at the same time. Caregivers and babies walk through the current exhibition together. A musician watches and listens to how they respond and prepares customized music for the next phase. Then everyone gathers in a circle in the studio classroom, where the musician shares songs remembered from their own childhood, the group learns and sings together, and the session closes with something made by everyone in the room, grown directly from what they saw and heard in the gallery.
See It, Sing It takes place weekly, November 2026 through December 2026, at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, 900 Camp Street. Each session runs 40 minutes. Tickets are $20 and sold through CACNO's website. Sessions are limited to 15 families. Babies newborn to crawling and their caregivers are welcome. No musical experience required.
See It, Sing It begins with a simple belief: that a woman holding her baby belongs in a gallery, that her baby's wide eyes and happy breathing in front of Carol Scott's rainbow colors are a form of engagement as serious as any other, and that the music grown from that moment is worth making. This program draws from the structural logic of New Orleans communal music traditions, where leader and community are in constant exchange, movement and sound go together like red beans and rice, and people join when and as they are ready. It is grounded in Gordon Music Learning Theory and led by a developmental music psychologist and a board-certified music therapist who have spent their careers asking what music can do when it is put in the right hands at the right moment.
The mothers and babies who move through this program remind us that our riches art and sound experiences start early and together.
Creative Team
Ekanem Ebinne, Music Director and Developmental Music Psychologist. The Founder of Joyful Sound Productions is a community music teaching artist and developmental music psychologist whose work spans more than 30 language and cultural backgrounds across the United States and Europe. She holds certification in Gordon Music Learning Theory and brings 15 years of transcultural community music practice to every circle she leads. Her research was conducted at Yale's Child Study Center and the Laboratory of Music and Communication in Infancy at the New University of Lisbon. A chorus member of OperaCréole in the world premiere of Edmond Dédé's Morgiane, the earliest known surviving full-length opera by a Black American composer, she values New Orleans music culture. She believes that the space between a caregiver and a young child is one of the most consequential spaces in human life, and that music is one of the few things that can reach it deeply.
Dr. Penny Roberts, PhD, MT-BC, NMT Owner, Crescent Penny Cultural Programs; Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of Music Therapy, Louisiana State University Dr. Penny Roberts is a board-certified music therapist and neurologic music therapy specialist whose practice centers on what music does to and for the human body across every stage of life. As Director of Music Therapy at Louisiana State University and founder of Crescent Penny Cultural Programs, she has spent her career building bridges between clinical expertise and community experience. In See It, Sing It, she brings both to the circle, meeting every mother and baby exactly where they are.Tieara Dokes, certified lactation nurse, full Spectrum Doula, and singing bowls player from Serene Nola, plays healing vibes tailored to the group and the moment.
Our team is completed with a dancer and choreographer rooted in New Orleans culture and attuned to babies and young families.
A Liftly Circle, presented by Joyful Sound Productions in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans
