World Music for Children (Part 1) | 138

Welcome to Crescendo Music Education Podcast, where we dive into the stories, sounds, and sparks that inspire creativity and learning in the classroom and beyond. Today, we’re taking a musical journey around the globe—and our tour guide is none other than world music children’s performer, DARIA!

For over four decades, Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou has been sharing the joy of music with families and classrooms across the U.S. and around the world. Her mission? To build bridges, celebrate culture, and create community through the universal language of music.

Daria’s music has earned numerous national awards for its cultural richness and educational value. You might know her as the voice behind the MLK Day “I Have a Dream” song or the powerful Earth Day anthem “We’ve Got The Whole World In Our Hands” that’s sung by children globally. She’s also brought us inspiring new classics like “Beautiful Rainbow World” and a special song for World Oceans Day.

But Daria’s impact goes beyond performance. She also creates incredible teaching resources that introduce children to world music instruments and traditions—like the chapchas, a unique rattle made from goat toenails and used in Andean music, which just so happens to be one of her favorite instruments!

So get ready to explore rhythms, stories, and sounds from around the world as we chat with Daria about how music connects us all—no matter where we’re from. Let’s dive into the world of music for children… and the magic it brings!

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

• How to Stay in Touch with Daria
  • https://www.dariamusic.com/
  • Youtube
  • Spotify
  • Bread and Roses
• 📘 Purchase World Music ABC’s HERE

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 138.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

If you’d prefer to listen to this episode, click here!

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 138 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

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Debbie O’Shea 

I would like to welcome to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast Daria. Hello, Daria.

Daria 

Oh nice to meet you today. Nice to be here with you on the podcast. As you can see I’ve brought many of my unusual instruments that maybe we’ll get a chance to talk about.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, I would love that. I am so looking forward to this episode, which will probably end up being more than one episode, because there’s so much I want to talk to you about. Now before I read your bio Daria, could I get you to just say your full name for the audience please?

Daria 

Yes, of course. I’m Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou and that’s kind of the reason why my stage name and performing name is Daria, because the rest is so long and nobody really needs to be able to pronounce all those ethnic names.

Debbie O’Shea 

It’s quite beautiful though. Where is it from?

Daria 

So my grandfather came from a very small village in Ukraine and that’s the Marmaluk and Hajioannou is my husband, who came from a little island in Greece. We are told that Hajioannou, originally the name meant baptised in the Jordan River. So his family was baptised in the Jordan River.

Debbie O’Shea 

Wow, that’s fascinating.

Daria 

Names carry so much and that is something I like to talk to kids about, how their names are part of their legacy. You can sing your name and say your name and there’s that beautiful book Your Name is a Song. There are so many ways to make kids feel proud of who they are and name and respecting their names and just like you asked me, it made me feel so wonderful. We can do that with our kids.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, we can. I could not agree more. You can see their faces when you address them with their name. It’s a special connection, isn’t it?

Daria 

Oh, absolutely. Music is also bonding. It’s not just entertainment and it’s not just teaching. It’s bonding. When a mother sings to their baby the baby doesn’t go, I’ll give you three stars Mummy, that really sucked. The baby, all they know is the sweetness that someone is putting them to sleep with their voice. So music has so much bonding and it creates community. There’s so many ways and that’s what I’m hoping we get to talk a little bit about today, to show music teachers they are not just teaching one thing. They are teaching this whole array of beautiful skills, even if they’re not quite aware they’re doing it.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, we are so on the same page. I think our job is so powerful in so many ways and I think if we’re aware of what we’re doing, it just gives us more purpose and power to protect the job that we do.

Daria 

Oh, absolutely. The more children are moved by it, the more they tell their parents, the more people understand and can advocate that the arts are not ancillary, they’re not an add on. A full human being has Bread and Roses. We don’t want one or the other. We really want both.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, I love that. I haven’t heard that saying, Bread and Roses. I love it.

Daria 

Oh, I’ll tell you a story very quickly. My grandmother was a dress worker in I guess what you’d call a sweatshop. The big protests they had, there was a song written about the Women’s March so Bread and Roses, about how we work, not just for what we need to eat and drink and a house, a roof over our head. We also want roses. We also want the joy, the happiness, the connection, the beauty in life. And that’s what the arts are, they are Bread and Roses. And I’ll send you the lyrics to the song, because I know you’ll fall in love with it too.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, please do. We’ll put the link in the show notes. So everybody that’s listening, all of the things that we mention in our chat, because I have a feeling there’s going to be a few links in this. They might not appear on Spotify or the platforms they’re listening to but if they pop into my website, crescendo.com.au, and go to your episode all of the links will be there.

Daria 

Perfect. I know I do that when I listen to your other things. Oh, I want to know where that person is. So definitely, just go to Debbie’s website and you’ll have all these extra resources.

Daria’s Bio

Debbie O’Shea 

There’ll be so many good ones by the end. But for those people who don’t know you, I’m going to read a short bio, just to give a bit of a background to everybody. So here we go, World Music children’s performer Daria has spent over four decades performing in the USA and around the world, creating community, building music. Along with numerous national awards for her culturally diverse music Daria is the author of the MLK Day Song I Have a Dream, as well as the Earth Day anthem used around the world We’ve Got The Whole World in Our Hands. She’s also the author of several other new classics for kids including Beautiful Rainbow World and a World Oceans Day song. I don’t even think I knew there was a World Oceans Day. Oh, my dear. I have so many holes to fill in anyway.

Daria 

It’s in June and it’s just a time to teach kids to be water protectors. I mean, how wonderful is that? With our music, we’re also teaching, we’re educating, we’re empowering kids.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, we have to. Yeah we need to embed some of this stuff into our practices, don’t we? Anyway, along with being an active performing and recording artist Daria also develops teaching resources that introduce children to world music instruments and traditions. Now I’m going to include an interesting fact, one of which is almost creepy, but anyway, one of her favourite instruments to play is a special rattle from the Andes called Chapchas. Oh, is that them? Oh, no, they’re made from the toenails of goats.

Daria 

So Debbie, where I grew up. You may not think about this when you think about Peru, but when you live in the high altitudes, there are no trees, there is very little wood, no trees. So the things you find around yourselves are bones and stones. And if you’re with a herding group, what you have is when they clip their nails someone and I don’t know how they figured that out realised that when you put them together on a bracelet, you get something that creates the most wonderful rattling sound that can keep time to a song.

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s quite a beautiful sound and they’re quite big. So those of you who aren’t watching this on YouTube, you have to get onto my YouTube channel and have a look, because I wouldn’t have thought goats’ toenails were that big.

Daria 

I raised sheep, so I know, but just like your dog’s toenails keep growing or your horses hoof, they keep growing. So good care for your animal is always keeping them short enough so that their feet can reach the ground. So this is just part of, usually of spring care, to take care of the nails. I know it’s not something you come across every day. But the point I make to kids is, people didn’t go, oh, I don’t have that. I don’t have a guitar I can’t make music.

I don’t have a piano I can’t make music. Music came from them and they looked around and they said, Wow, what can I use to make music? In Africa, they used these gourds and they added something they call a skirt and then that becomes a Shekere. It could be a water container. It could also turn into a musical instrument. So our kids can do the same thing. Look around and think, What can I use to make music? Can I invent an instrument? Of course, there you’ve got STEM skills. I mean, there are so many ways you can start with music and then just enrich, enrich, enrich and empower, empower, empower, to tell kids you can do that.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, I love it. What a great start. We haven’t even got to the first question yet and you’re already dropping all this amazing gold on everyone. Alright, if we go back to your bio, because obviously it’s very brief, because I request a brief bio so I don’t have to read too much. Is there something you’d like to add to that little summary of your work?

A Brief Summary of Daria

Daria 

Really the best thing for me is when a song I’ve written or created resonates with people. I got an email from I believe it was Christchurch, New Zealand, after that terrible attack at the mosque, that a group of people wanted to come up with a song to show the Muslim people in their area that they loved them and they cared for them, so they saw my song Assalam Aleykum, which teaches the Muslim greeting. The song is so simple it says Assalam Aleykum, (Wa) Alaikum-As-Salaam. Peace be upon you and upon you peace. May your joys be many, may your sorrow cease.

And it was the chorus, I think an adult or a nursing home, they learnt the song and went out and sang to their neighbours when there was a meeting of the mosque, they wanted to show the love through music. So I guess what I wanted to say is the thing that makes me happy is just when I’ve written something that people like enough to carry out into the streets and to use to show their love or their unity, or love for the earth. I have a dream to show that they believe that every person has dignity and has a right and has power and authority. That’s the coolest thing in the world and a writer only wishes they could do that. I’ve been lucky a couple times, so I guess that’s all I would add to that.

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s beautiful. I tell you what, if I don’t cry by the end of this interview, it’s so beautiful. It’s almost like your work is the pinnacle, or a very visible illustration of the sort of thing that we do every day with our kids, but you’re doing it on a bigger, deeper scale. But it’s an excellent reminder for all of us that this power of connection and music and support, it runs all the way down from what you do for Earth Day and MLK Day and across the world, we do with our tiny little kids every day.

Daria 

Those tiny little kids become the adults that will hopefully embrace and share these kind of beautiful ideas. I love the phrase no baby is born a racist. They get exposed to things and what we can do is make sure that no child becomes a racist, that they discover the beauty and the wonder in all their friends and in all the friends they haven’t met yet.

And if they speak two languages, they respect both languages. They don’t think they have to cut themselves in half and be only one person or another. These are the kind of things we teach through music. We may not stop and say that, but when we do a song from another culture, when we do an indigenous song, what that says is, I respect this. This is valuable. This is good. When that subliminal message gets into our kids’ heads, this is all worth knowing. This is all wonderful. This is interesting. This isn’t weird.

Having spent a lot of my youth in Peru, I was absolutely knocked out by the difference between western culture and indigenous culture. In Western culture, I remember being in school and kids would go, Oh, you have that colour hair that’s weird. Oh, your aunt talks funny, that’s weird. In Peru it was, you have that colour hair can I touch it? Oh, wow, you have an aunt that talks like that, tell me about that. There was this complete shift of when something’s new is it weird and awful and yucky, or is it interesting?

Tell me more. Bring it to me, show me and that has always sat in my head is the way I want to express things and the way I want to teach. Let’s bring it in. Let’s listen to it. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s share it. If you’re different, it’s something marvelous. How horrible would it be if everyone were little robots, all looking the same, talking the same, eating the same, incredibly boring. Our life is enriched by our diversity, despite the fact the politics today, it’s not affecting that.

Debbie O’Shea 

No, it doesn’t affect our hearts. Does it?

Daria 

You know what? The one thing I take from this is that it makes many of us stronger in making sure we send that message out. Because a message is out there. If you’re walking down the street and you hear a bad message, that doesn’t mean you have to believe it and that’s what we can also teach the children. These formative times are the times a teacher can really make memories that last forever. They absolutely do. Your students may not have the verbal skills to tell you that, or the perspective of years, but I think they look back especially to a teacher they loved.

For me, it would always be an art or a music teacher, thinking she taught me so much, or she taught me I could do my own thing. She told me I could play that thing. She showed me. She corrected me with kindness. These are things that literally decades later are still in my heart. You guys on the front line are teaching that. They will stick with them for decades to come and make the next generation so much kinder.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, yes and I think we can’t lose sight of that when things get us down in a fairly busy sort of job. So I agree and teaching that just through our actions and our repertoire choice which we can have a talk about that too. Yes, our interactions really, we’re teaching them to be curious and tolerant and accepting and loving. I love that comparison you did between the two cultures and the way that they look at weird. So, oh, I love it. I love it.

Daria 

The world is full of differences. So let’s teach our children how to find beauty in them. Beauty and wonder and enrichment. It’s there, you know. So let’s not close those doors.

Debbie O’Shea 

Oh, there’s so much you’re saying is just so important to everybody that is listening to this. So thank you for saying so. Are there any particular highlights? So you mentioned getting an email about a piece that’s made a difference and absolutely I can see that would be a highlight. Is there anything in particular as a musician, conductor, music educator, in your work? Is there something that sticks out as a highlight for you?

Daria’s Highlight

Daria 

Well, there’s always those fun things when you’ve won an award, or a parent teacher award but honestly, in 1992 I got to represent the United States in Seville Spain at World Expo and to be on a big stage looking at Peter Max murals and to just be a part of it. After we finished our show, to just pack all our gear up and to be able to walk around and see the best that the world had to offer on this stage and that stage and this demonstration.

So it’s always nice to get that acknowledgement. In a world that’s so full of artists and so full of great artists and so full of things, it was nice to be chosen. Really, every time you get nominated for a Grammy, it’s just like, Thank you, you noticed me. Because even musicians too, it might look glamorous, but between songwriting and putting things out and writing materials, it can be a little solitary. It’s so nice to be getting that feedback saying your song made a difference, or I used your materials in class and the kids loved it.

I’ll mention one more thing, I got an email. I love getting emails. I got an email from a teacher because I just did a set of colouring pages about musical instruments from India. She had all my colouring pages, the black and whites are always free. So if you’re looking for resources for your classroom, especially if you have new immigrants, new refugees, just go. And if I haven’t created it, I will create if for you. She used the colouring pages of a dhol drum, that’s D, H, O, L, and that was used in northern India and she brought that into the class.

Had everyone colour. The three kids that were new refugees, who had been shy and had poor English skills. They were not comfortable, after she did this little unit and then used the colouring pages and the information, suddenly everyone in the class started to see them as ambassadors. Did you play that drum? Can you play that drum? What song is that from? Suddenly, everyone wanted to sit with the child at lunch instead of, who’s that new child that we don’t know? It was a complete shift. She said it wasn’t just information, it wasn’t just education. It was a total lift to his spirits and a sense that he didn’t come from some place sad or bad.

He came from some place with a rich heritage. That music teacher sent that message to the whole class and we have that opportunity all the time to send the message that if you are from a different culture, no matter what your diversity, if your family is mixed, it doesn’t matter,  you have this incredible richness and in our class we’re going to be celebrating that. I don’t know if you heard this big controversy lately, that this lovely teacher, I believe in Idaho, had a beautiful plaque that said, All are welcome here and she was forced to take it down.

Now all of us teachers are laughing? Yes, she was, she put it back up that but it was kind of one of these things where they thought that was too much diversity and inclusion. But of course, we’re laughing. What sign was she supposed to have? You are not welcome here. Some kids are welcome here. Not all kids are welcome here. It really did bring the spotlight to why diversity, inclusion is an important message, but that’s the kind of thing that we need to be, I know it is so ridiculous. It almost sounds like a parody from The Onion or something. Because why anyone would say that it was just ridiculous?

Debbie O’Shea 

That’s awful.

Daria 

It’s terrible.

Debbie O’Shea 

I’m glad it brought a spotlight to things at least, that anybody could have any objection. How ridiculous. I know this is actually going a little bit off the outline that we have, but you were talking about that email that you got with the little boy and it was connected to his culture. How important is it that we address the cultures that are in front of us? Because that’s one of the issues we have. I imagine you have it in the States, we certainly have it in Australia, the number of cultures represented in your school can be quite overwhelming.

It depends on the school where you are and what you’re doing, but you could be working with 900 children in a week and how many cultures are represented within those kids? How do we include all of those, even if we know? Because sometimes we might not even know, we just think, Okay, I have a feeling there’s some other cultures in here. But how important is it to actually address the cultures of the children in front of you and how could we tackle this if we don’t actually know what that is?

Addressing Cultures

Daria 

That’s a really good question. I think one of the best ways you can do it is to kind of have already in place different ways that you bring world music. For instance I’ll give you an example. I just wrote a book called The World Music ABCs and it has from A to Z different instruments from every continent that has people in it. So we had no Antarctic or Arctic. I always get this confused. But anyhow, every continent where there’s people, there’s an instrument for that. Things like putting up a bulletin board in the hallway that shows world music.

You may not be able to have 900 students’ exact instrument. But so many times they look at that and they go, Oh, yes, that’s similar to that. So this general support of diverse instruments and  teaching things like Lunar New Year, boy that encompasses so many cultures. So it’s a nice way you can take one celebration and then talk about a Vietnamese lullaby, do a Chinese song for Lunar New Year like Gong Xi, Gong Xi, or even show a couple of videos. There’s so many ways that you can do that. Oh, also, I have bulletin boards from all the musical instruments in Africa. I have world music that incorporates things from India, Pakistan, Europe and these are all things that, again, even if you’re not mentioning their favourite instrument you’re opening the door to, Let’s talk about it.

Am I missing something? Let me know. Oh my goodness, let me learn about that. So that’s the kind of thing. You can also look like this woman looked, she kind of saw that student is just feeling overwhelmed. I mean, being an immigrant or a refugee is a very difficult situation, so perhaps she just saw that the adjustment of this person would be made so much richer if we could kind of affirm the culture.

So I think that you’re always looking to see, What ways can I make my classroom more responsive to this year’s students or this group of students? So reach out for these creative tools, like bulletin boards. Oh, I also have this thing I think is so much fun. It’s a memory game. So it has world music instruments. It’s eight and a half by 11. So you print them out, you put them on the floor and your class does a matching game.

So you know how you turn that one over and this one’s here and I need that one over there, but they have to learn the name of the instrument when they’re doing it. Then later you can basically show them, well the Shekere  you matched, here’s a video of someone playing it. Okay, the Guiro, we have a Guiro in this class, so it’s a fun way of bringing new things in even if we’re not hitting on every single group, you’re probably going to get the hand up, Miss Debbie. Miss Debbie. We play something that looks like that when we have our celebration so we play that.

Then that’s the opportunity. Let them tell you, Okay at Christmas time you play that, tell me about it. The other thing I love to encourage people if it comes up, if there are any parents or community members that sing or would share, oh, here’s the song I sing at Lunar New Year. Here’s the song we sing at birthdays. This is the Filipino birthday song. Whatever it is, if you find parents that are amenable to it. It really just shows the cultural context of music. So you’re not teaching music kind of in a vacuum, you’re teaching it in terms of, well that’s what we sing for birthdays. There’s so many fun ways you can be saying yes through music and the arts.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love that and I love the concept of the matching game, concentration I think it’s called when you match the pairs. Oh, I love that. Oh, we will definitely, you sell that one. We’ll definitely put the link in.

Daria 

Oh, my kids would play those games for hours and it’s stealth, what I call stealth learning. You are learning. You’re learning all about it, but you’re trying to beat your sister at the same time. So it will harness that competitive nature and turn it into something they can learn from.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love that.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

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