Children’s Music Workshop
is Lexington’s premier music program for children from birth to age 9. Featured in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Lexington Family Magazine, and on WKYT-TV, Children’s Music Workshop has been praised for its innovative curriculum and creative teaching approaches, based on the most up-to-date research connecting early music learning with enriched cognitive development. Classes incorporate a wide variety of stimulating and imaginative musical experiences – songs and chants from around the world, creative movement and dance, instrument playing, storytelling, and improvisation – which have been chosen to cultivate a love of music and provide a foundation for future musical study. From instrument petting zoos at the Lexington Philharmonic to special programs at the Lexington Children’s Museum, Children’s Music Workshop is known throughout the region for the high quality of its children’s programming. We are committed to community outreach, and through a Community Arts Development Grant sponsored by the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council, have recently collaborated with the Lexington Children's Museum to bring a series of music classes to the Family Care Center. Our classes meet once a week at Central Christian Church in downtown Lexington and are limited to a maximum of 10 children.
Beth Ellen is a children's music specialist and pianist who founded Children's Music Workshop in 1995. She holds performance degrees from Juilliard and Oberlin, and has been on the teaching faculties of Juilliard, the Chapin School, the United Nations International School and Brooklyn College Preparatory Center for the Arts. A recipient of the Mastership Certification in early childhood music and music learning theory from Temple University, she has trained extensively in the teaching methods of Orff Schulwerk, Kodaly and Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Recently, she gave seminars at Wellesley College and the Longy School of Music, and was a speaker at the Northeast Regional Conference of the Early Childhood Music and Movement Association Conference. She has been invited to give workshops for teachers and teachers-in-training at the University of Kentucky, Providence Montessori, the Bluegrass Association for the Education of Young Children, Gan Shalom Preschool, and the Jessamine County Cooperative Extension Service. She regularly presents music programs for children at the Lexington Philharmonic Family Concert Series, the Lexington Children's Museum, and Mayfest.
Beth Ellen is the recipient of an artist grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to develop an outreach program in music education for at-risk families. She is a cofounder of Salem Music, a summer chamber music festival in Connecticut, and is a coach-accompanist with the University of Kentucky Opera Theater. She and her husband, Al Shapere, have two children.
