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It’s Dan Zanes for Earth Day

By
Christopher Walsh

In honor of Earth Day, which is Sunday, the musician Dan Zanes, a onetime rock ’n’ roller who is now the most recognized name in the family-music genre, will give a free concert at 3 p.m. at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. 

Fans of a certain age may remember Mr. Zanes from the Del Fuegos, a Boston-based rock band that found mainstream success with the 1985 album “Boston, Mass.,” featuring the hits “Don’t Run Wild” and “I Still Want You.” After the band’s dissolution, Mr. Zanes became a father and began creating music that he and his daughter could enjoy together. 

In 2000, the New Hampshire native moved to Brooklyn. That year, Dan Zanes and Friends released “Rocket Ship Beach,” featuring guests including Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, and Simon Kirke, and which the website allmusic.com said “mixes well-known songs for kids, standards, and traditional country and folk songs with a hand-crafted sound and plenty of affection for both the music and its intended audience.” 

In October, Mr. Zanes, his wife, Claudia Eliaza, a jazz vocalist and music therapist, and Yuriana Sobrino, a Mexican percussionist, premiered “Night Train 57: A Sensory-Friendly Folk Opera” at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “Night Train 57” has been described as “an interactive folk opera that takes audiences on a far-out ride to the galaxies and back,” made up of original folk songs.

Ms. Eliaza is at present performing in Russia. Sunday’s lineup will include Mr. Zanes, Ms. Sobrino, and Pauline Jean, a percussionist. 

The concert will be a sensory-friendly experience, which Mr. Zanes described as “a way of creating conditions in a venue that make the performance more comfortable for people with special needs, including but not limited to people on the autism spectrum — people with sensitivities to sound and lights.” 

“But really,” he continued, “the thing we emphasize is it’s a way of opening the door wider. The audience that’s going to come anyway comes to the show, but we let everybody know that all behaviors are welcome; we’ve taken everybody into consideration. The atmosphere is comfortable. It’s just a way of increasing the accessibility.” 

This, he said, is the future of family performance, “because once everybody knows how little it takes to create more accessibility, it takes absolutely nothing from the performance. It’s the same as it ever was, just the conditions are slightly tweaked. Which they are anyway: We don’t play loud shows, or use strobe lights. It’s an easy shift. For us as performers, we love it because it feels better to know that more people are invited to the party.” 

Ms. Eliaza and Ms. Jean are Haitian-American, and Mr. Zanes said that he is “just crazy” about the music of Haiti. “We live in a Haitian-Jamaican neighborhood,” he said, “and I just listen to it all the time. It’s totally opened my mind in so many ways. Haitian music, in a strange way, has helped me to find different ways of playing. I’m not trying to make songs sound like the Haitian records I have, but the use of percussion, the way the instruments interact with each other — it’s been inspiring.” 

Ms. Jean, he said, “will be a really nice addition” on Sunday. “Folk music with percussion — it really seems like that’s the future of folk: more percussion.”

 

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