Mama Doni National Tour Kicks Off For Chanukah Season

Hot on the heels of a tremendously successful summer tour, the fall/winter Mama Doni National Tour has begun! Mama Doni and The Mama Doni Band are excited to come home for the holidays, highlighting the Chanukah season with four special "Chanukah Fever" shows in the NYC tri-state region from December 11 - 18. New York families can join in Mama Doni's high-energy pre-Chanukah festivities at concerts in Manhattan and West Nyack . There will also be shows in West Hartford, CT and Hoboken, NJ. Performance details are below.

Doni Zasloff Thomas, a.k.a. Mama Doni, is the lead singer/songwriter of The Mama Doni Band, honored with a 2011 Parents' Choice® Award for their recent release, Shabbat Shaboom, and winner of the Simcha Award for "Inspiring Joy Through Music" in competition with more than 100 bands from 15 different countries at the 2008 International Jewish Music Festival in Amsterdam. The band celebrates Jewish culture with irrepressible zest in its interactive family rock concerts filled with catchy pop songs that break the mold of traditional Jewish music. Quirky, offbeat, and unpredictable, The Mama Doni Band offers up a contagious and unexpected blend of reggae, rock, disco, Latin, klezmer and "Jewgrass" - all woven together with a hip Jewish sensibility.

Mama Doni promises plenty of surprises throughout this year's Chanukah concerts, including giveaways of chocolate gelt, Mama Doni CDs, posters and free downloads of Mama Doni songs to everyone in attendance. Kids will boogie like a dreidel, air guitar with the band ("Latke Man" style), join in an applesauce vs. sour cream rock-along, and chime in on the eternal question of "Chanukah" or "Hanukah." Rocking out for Chanukah, Mama Doni & The Mama Doni Band will perform such latkelicious songs as "The Funky Gold Menorah," "La Vida Dreidel," and "I Say Chanukah (You Say Hanukah!)." The band will go all out with a wild bluegrass version of "Honey, This Ain't Money" (about Chanukah gelt), and, as a special treat, several new songs will be showcased, including the soon-to-be-famous "The Land of Sufganiyot" (a reggae song about jelly doughnuts). Hip young kids and their even hipper parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles should come prepared to get up and dance at these spirited Jewish rock concerts. Chanukah will never be the same!

According to Carrie Stetler in The Star-Ledger, Doni Zasloff Thomas "is proud to have a schtick. And that schtick, she says, is to ‘Jewify' all forms of music - from country to reggae to holiday songs." The Miami Herald enthused, "Not since Woody Allen's Radio Days has American Jewish youth culture been celebrated with such a sublime mix of silly and substantive."

Mama Doni, a resident of Montclair, New Jersey, hopes that her music will add some Jewish flavor to the lives of people everywhere. She speaks with great passion about preserving the priceless Yiddish and Jewish spirit by imbuing it with a contemporary vibe that connects to life in our times.

Mama Doni's recordings are available nationwide, as CDs and digital downloads, from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, FYE.com, iTunes, and select Costco locations. Projects currently in production include a Mama Doni book, DVD, and new CD. A TV pilot is also in the works!

CHANUKAH FEVER! WITH MAMA DONI & THE MAMA DONI BAND

WHERE: JCC Rockland, 450 West Nyack Rd., West Nyack, NY 10994
WHEN: Sunday, December 11, 4:00 p.m.
TICKETS: In advance: $8 members, $12 non-members; at the door: $10 members, $15.00 non-members.
INFO: 845-362-4400. http://www.jccyofrockland.org/

WHERE: Mandell JCC, 335 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06117
WHEN: Saturday, December 17, 6:30 p.m.
TICKETS: In advance: $10 members, $12 non-members; at the door: $12 members, $15 non-members.
INFO: 860-231-6316 . http://www.mandelljcc.org/

WHERE: Kaplan Cooperative Preschool at United Synagogue of Hoboken, 115 Park Ave., Hoboken, NJ 07030
WHEN: Sunday, December 18, 10:30 a.m.
TICKETS: Synagogue members $10. Non-members $18. Kaplan preschool students, free.
INFO: 201-222-9696. http://www.hobokensynagogue.org/

WHERE: 92nd Street Y, Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, Buttenwieser Hall,1395 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10128
WHEN: Sunday, December 18, 3:00 p.m.
TICKETS: $15
INFO: 212-415-5500. http://www.92y.org

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