After a six-year hiatus, Heldeberg Music Together is bringing the Family Jam back to Delmar Reformed Church.
Heldeberg Music Together Director, Deb Cavanaugh, is hosting Family Jam, a scholarship fundraiser, which will take place Saturday, March 28, 11am-1pm, at Delmar Reformed Church, located at 386 Delaware Avenue, Delmar, NY 12054.
The fundraiser will include a bake sale, raffles, and live performances by Lou Amendolara, Brian and Lauren Axford, George Burns, Deb Cavanaugh, David Geoghegan, Susan Gierthy, Patricia Kernan, Shows Leary, Terri Lukacko, Dave Rhodes, Paul Rosenberg, and Amy Whitman.
A suggested $15 donation per family will be accepted at the door on the day of the show. For those who cannot attend the fundraiser but wish to donate can do so by sending a donation to Heldeberg Music Together through PayPal(heldebergmusic@gmail.com), Venmo (@Deb-Cavanaugh-1), or mailing a check to Deb Cavanaugh, Director and Owner of Heldeberg Music Together, 216 Goodell Road, Petersburgh, NY 12138.
About Family Jam
Since 2009, apart from the COVID-19 pandemic and Cavanaugh’s 2025 medical emergency, Heldeberg Music Together hosts the Family Jam to raise money for the scholarship fund. The Delmar organization provides scholarships to families with young children (ages birth through eight) who need financial assistance to cover music classes.
Cavanaugh originally began Family Jam because she was losing money by giving free classes to those in need. She later realized that she needed to recoup that money.
“I believe strongly that these music classes should be available to everyone regardless of economics. Sometimes, the families that have the least need this the most.” Cavanaugh said. “The classes are about more than music; they’re also teaching tips for parenting with one or two “parent education moments” in each class.”
At Heldeberg Music Together, the classes that Cavanaugh teaches are for families. The children that attend a class come with an adult, a parent, grandparent, or another caregiver. Cavanaugh’s job is to teach music to the adult and child in “an organic learning experience.” She helps her clients become “musical families” by using music, in the form of singing and dancing, to help with parenting while giving the kids a head startinto music.
Heldeberg Music Together offers mixed-age classes (ages birth through four), Rhythm Kids (ages four through seven), and a guitar class for adults. A full 10-week session costs $225, which includes all the music for the semester. Cavanaugh teaches five to six classes per week in Delmar.
Cavanaugh began teaching the Music Together program as Carol Jurs’ employee. In 2007, Jurs sold Cavanaugh the Delmar and Albany Music Together locations. Cavanaugh later sold the Albany location and bought a Troy location. However, she gave up on the Troy site last year and currently teaches her lessons in Delmar.
About Music Together
Music Together was founded in 1987 by Kenneth K. Guilmartin, a working theatre composer and music educator, and Lili Levinowitz, PhD, prior director of the Children’s Music Development Program at Temple University and researcher.
Guilmartin was drawn to the field of early childhood music education while working as an associate editor for Birch Tree Group. At the time, he observed that the music experiences of the children he knew and taught were usually limited to passive music listening. The children grew up with little or no opportunity for live and playful music making. Also, many children sustained a delay in developing basic music skills once they arrived in elementary school, unable to sing in tune or move in a rhythmically, accurate way.
In 1986, Guilmartin attended an Edwin Gordon seminar on music learning in children where he met Levinowitz, an advocate for non-formal music experiences for the very young. Once they met, they began developing the curriculum that evolved into Music Together.
For 39 years, Guilmartin and Levinowitz continue to research and together, developed nine Music Together parent- child song collections. They’ve added class types for Babies, Music Together In-School, and Music Together Big Kids. They continue to teach Music Together classes and remain involved in training people to teach the programs to this day.
