Concerts and musical performances geared towards children can be a blast for the little ones, but they may not always be the most enjoyable experiences for parents. Music for kids can be grating, especially in a concert setting. This is the conundrum that the Saturday Morning Tunes concert series sets out to solve by holding concerts that are meant to be fun for kids and parents alike.
Saturday Morning Tunes concerts have attracted over 25,000 attendees since they launched in 2017, with covers of family favorites like Taylor Swift and classics like The Grateful Dead, as well as performances from local bands like the Annapolis-based rock band Jimmie’s Chicken Shack.
At the beginning of September, Saturday Morning Tunes held its biggest concert yet: a “Grateful Dead and Phish for Kids” concert at the Maryland State Fair on Sunday, Sept. 7, featuring Ed Hough’s Dead Collective and PHOAM: A Tribute to Phish.
“The secret of Saturday Morning Tunes is that it’s not actually for kids—it’s for parents,” explains Sam Sessa, founder of Saturday Morning Tunes and Director of Events & Community Engagement at Baltimore Public Media. “This isn’t twee kids’ music, though we did host some of that in the beginning. These are bands I’d want to see at night, just playing in the morning when parents don’t have to pay money for a sitter.”
Sessa came up with the idea for Saturday Morning Tunes while working for WTMD 89.7 FM. When he spoke with other parents, they would often say that they used to like to go to WTMD concerts, but were unable to once they had children.
As a father of two boys himself, Sessa wanted parents to be able to share the music they love with their kids in a family-friendly environment.
“Usually, Saturday Morning Tunes [concerts] are an enclosed space, but there’s room for kids to run around and be kids,” he adds. “There’s a lot of different places for kids to explore and activities to keep them busy while their parents are enjoying the music.”
Some of the kids’ activities offered at these concerts are themed to the musical act performing, such as friendship bracelet-making during Taylor Swift for Kids and tie-dying during Grateful Dead for Kids.
The Sept. 7 concert was actually a combination of two of the series’s most popular shows. Ed Hough’s Dead Collective and PHOAM are popular performers at the Maryland State Fair who are coming together for this more family-friendly affair.
“I want to be able to share the things I love with my kids,” Sessa says. “If I like live music, I want them to be able to experience the music I like, and hopefully come to appreciate it themselves.”
For more information, visit wtmd.org/radio/wtmd-saturday-morning-tunes.
