The Oregon Symphony and Path Home Host the 2025 Lullaby Project

In a creative partnership with Path Home and some of Portland's most influential singer-songwriters (including Bre Gregg, Stephanie Schneiderman, and Edna Vazquez), The Oregon Symphony will present the Lullaby Project, coming to the Alberta Rose Theatre for one night only on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online through the Oregon Symphony website.

Conceived by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, the Lullaby Project uses the creative process of songwriting to improve well-being and childhood bonds with parents experiencing housing insecurity and other challenging life situations. This project originally came to Portland in 2018 as a partnership with Path Home, a non-profit helping empower families experiencing homelessness to get back into stable, long-term housing. Together with musicians from the Oregon Symphony and local singer-songwriters, parents and parents-to-be create personal lullabies or love songs for their children through this project, expressing their hopes and dreams for the future. This creative collaboration harnesses the transformative joy of music, utilizing it to strengthen the bonds between parent and child, and connecting community through the power of the performing arts.

Kicking off the process in March 2025, the lullabies for this project are being written in a close, collaborative process between the families at Path Home and the local singer-songwriters. During early creative sessions, the songwriters have been working one-on-one with participants to capture each family's personal story, hopes, and dreams for the future with their child. The lullabies are then arranged and professionally recorded before being performed live at the Alberta Rose Theatre in a one-night-only moving musical event.

Featured Oregon Symphony musicians include:

• Peter Frajola, Violin
• Zach Galatis, Flute
• Amanda Grimm, Viola
• Marilyn de Oliveira, Cello
• Jason Schooler, Double Bass
• Inés Voglar Belgique, Violin

Portland singer-songwriters for the event include:

• Marianna Thielen (Arranger and Artistic Director)
• Naomi LaViolette
• Bre Gregg
• Beth Wood
• Stephanie Schneiderman
• Marilyn Keller
• Amenta Abioto (Yawa)
• Anna Tivel
• Sarah Clarke
• Coty Raven Morris
• Edna Vazquez

“At the Oregon Symphony, we believe in the profound impact of music as a tool for healing and creating community connections,” says Isaac Thompson, President and CEO of the Oregon Symphony. “We're proud to be part of the Lullaby Project, which offers an intimate way for families experiencing homelessness and skilled singer-songwriters to discover how music has the ability to transcend barriers to create moments of beauty and human connection.”

“The lullabies that are co-created by the musicians and families who are experiencing homelessness are deep, heartfelt, and joyful,” said Brandi Tuck, Executive Director of Path Home. “These songs are a true display of how sharing one's story can help individuals move closer towards healing from trauma.”

To learn more about the Lullaby Project and to hear past lullaby collections, visit https://www.orsymphony.org/lullaby-project.

For years, the Symphony has been hoping to bring the Lullaby Project into Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF) to work with incarcerated mothers and mothers-to-be who are away from their children for extended periods of time. The entire goal of this project is to help parents bond with their children, supporting parental health and childhood development, and thanks to the support from our partners at the Family Preservation Project (FPP) of YWCA of Greater Portland, we are thrilled to share we have been able to bring the Lullaby Project into CCCF for the very first time in 2025.

YWCA's FPP has been providing direct services inside CCCF for more than 20 years, strengthening families and communities by assisting incarcerated women as they become rooted in their identities as mothers, promoting the rights of children of incarcerated parents, and providing trauma-informed services designed specifically for each parent's unique needs. By partnering with them, the Symphony is able to bring three Teaching Artists (Stephanie Schneiderman, Bre Gregg, and Anna Tivel) who are working with three moms/moms-to-be at CCCF to write three lullabies for the children that they hold dear. We'll also bring our recording engineer from Hallowed Halls, Justin Phelps, to CCCF to record the vocals of any mothers who would like to be on the professionally produced final recording, adding their voices to the melodies of the full ensemble.

Especially when a mother is incarcerated and separated from her children, these lullabies provide an exceptionally powerful opportunity for these women to connect with a child that they may not be able to visit with frequency, or in the case of mothers-to-be who will deliver while incarcerated, the songs these women create may serve as tools to help them bond with children they may not physically be able to see or hold. And while recording in an unconventional environment is not without its challenges (for example, how to record in an environment that doesn't allow cell phones), the benefits from this rewarding project make every moment worthwhile. FPP is thrilled to be able to invite the families of the CCCF moms to the final concert on May 13 and will share the final recordings with the mothers at CCCF, who will be able to access these lullabies on a computer in a communal classroom/office space.

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