The entertainer
Children’s entertainer Taline is combining a love for her Armenian culture with her love of music.
The Glendale resident travels around the world with her show, which features singing and dancing to traditional Armenian songs as well as those she and others have written and her husband has arranged.
Her Christmas tour show will make its fourth annual stop on Sunday at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Taline came to the United States at 15. She earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from Cal State Northridge and worked as a pre-school teacher for several years before starting her career as an Armenian children’s-music singer.
She has eight CDs to her credit and four children’s-music DVDs. Taline has created choreography to go with the songs and she and her two daughters perform it while singing, she said.
Takouhey Saatjian, of La Crescenta, has worked with Taline on writing some of the lyrics for her songs on the DVDs.
“Our main focus is we want to teach children through music a love of their language, and to be active with the music,” she said. “I’m a preschool director. At preschool, my kids keep putting Taline’s DVDs on over and over again. Every song is interactive and educational, and they are learning their language and singing with Taline.”
While Taline’s repertoire is mostly songs sung in the Armenian language, some are in English and some are a combination of both languages, she said. They are songs recognizable to both children and parents so they can sing and dance along.
“We ask five or six volunteers to come up on stage and sing along with us,” she said. “I love that, when they get up and perform with us. Lots of our songs have choreography, and they have learned the steps from watching our DVDs and they do the steps with us. It’s a lot of fun.”
The main objective is to grow the young Armenian children’s interest in the Armenian language and culture, Taline said.
“We have a lot of Armenian children on the East Coast and in other countries like Thailand who don’t hear Armenian spoken at home,” she said.
While the children who attend her shows are English-speaking, often they might not understand everything, Taline said, but music is universal and the songs are catchy and upbeat.
“I sing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ first in English and in Armenian after it,” she said. “‘Wheels on the Bus’ I sing in English, and the song ‘Limbo’ I sing in English but sing the last verse in Armenian.”
In addition to entertaining children, Taline uses her music to educate them, Saatjian said. Some of their songs teach youngsters letters and numbers in the Armenian language and other songs work on other skills.
“When we’re choosing lyrics or topics for new songs that Taline is going to sing, we are very careful to choose songs and music that will develop the children’s creativity, use of the Armenian language, and their love of music and movement,” she said.
They also try to give them the sense of connection with nature, Saatjian said.
“Taline has songs about animals, the environment and how to take care of nature.”
Taline has just completed a Christmas tour that began on Nov. 18 in Manhattan. She performed shows in Detroit, San Francisco and Montreal, and just returned from Paris.
FYI
WHAT: Taline and Friends: A Christmas Concert
WHEN: 5 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: The Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale
TICKETS: $18 to $30
CONTACT: (818) 243-2539, www.alextheatre.org or www.talinemusic.com