Album Notes

From the Producer - About this CD

As my son Haig grew to an age to appreciate music, and our collection of traditional American childrens' titles grew, I began to scour the Internet and more traditional sources for quality Armenian children's music. While there were a small number of CDs on the market, an idea began to form. Would it be possible to produce a series of digital entertainment titles that would make learning in Armenian fun? In particular, I thought about our goals for our children's toddler years: spending quality time with them, creating a foundation for Armenian even as they grew up in an English-speaking environment, taking advantage of their natural inquisitiveness to teach new things, reinforcing the roots of their Armenian heritage while keeping up with their American friends, and finally, building the thought of school as a positive experience.

School Bus is the first title launched by Molorak Arts, whose mission is to explore and expose aural and visual arts to Armenian children of all ages. The storyline, songs and booklet of this CD were created as an interactive educational experience for Armenian parents and their young children. The artwork, lyrics and factoids in the booklet complement the songs and are intended to enrich the educational experience. We selected a combination of traditional Armenian and western children's songs, and in the case of "Animals in Our Yard", "The Lake Song" and "Almost There", wrote original Armenian lyrics to traditional western tunes (can you guess which?) to teach Armenian-American children the Armenian language while singing familiar tunes.

The album was recorded in Armenia under the direction of Levon Messiayan, who also arranged all the songs. Listeners will no doubt hear the children's Armenian accents as they sing in English, which adds a degree of uniqueness to the album. In any case, I hope you enjoy the performance of the children of the RIL & G. choir as much as we did while completing this project. More importantly, I sincerely hope that this album will help you and your children appreciate the wonderful world of animals, nature, school and our millennia-old Armenian language and culture.

Lucineh Kassarjian