Last weekend, I did a family concert with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. On the program was a 30-minute instrumental suite composed and narrated by Bruce Adolphe. Bruce is an extremely gifted speaker and performer – he’s hilarious, and for this show he dressed up and acted out semi-improvised interludes to our performance.

Anyhow, before the concert, we had what they called an ‘Instrument Petting Zoo’ – or about 45 minutes of controlled chaos + musical instruments. Basically, they set each of the performers up in roped-off pens with our instruments and then they let the kids in. Hundreds of them.

Percussion instruments are always interesting and fun for young people, and almost immediately a line around the lobby formed around the marimba I had. The hardest part was getting the kids off the instrument – we wanted to get to as many as possible, but how do you take a mallet out of a kids hand and tell him that he has to go?

Here are some great shots of the fun, courtesy of Tristan Cook.