Category: Community Content and Services

“Laila Laila”: The Lullaby Project

An innovative pilot program in which independent artists from the music field meet with families after childbirth, with the goal of writing, composing, and recording a personalized lullaby for their newborn.

parental welfare

The Lullaby Project is a unique initiative by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which has been operating over the past decade in various institutions around the world. It connects new parents with musicians to create a personalized lullaby for their baby.

The project was originally designed to support underprivileged populations, with a focus on maternal health, child development, and strengthening the bond between parents and their young children. Many participating families have experienced emotional challenges on their journey to parenthood, facing obstacles such as surrogacy, language barriers, premature or sudden births, young parenthood, and more. This creative space offers parents a chance to process their complex experiences, connect with others who have faced similar challenges, and share hopes and wishes for their child - feelings that can sometimes be lost in the daily routine of caring for a newborn.

Inspired by the international project, we chose to introduce personalized lullaby creation to Tel Aviv-Jaffa for the first time, using a city-based model aimed at reaching a broad audience. We connect musicians with parents of infants (from birth to six months old) in a creative process to compose a unique, personalized lullaby for their child. Our hope is that this lullaby will spark a new family tradition, deepen the bond between parents and their newborn, and reflect the family’s values and heritage.

Pilot:

- Participants

We chose to launch the pilot for the project in three parent communities in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, partnering with a relevant professional community organization in each location.:

Group 1: Immigrant Parents
- in collaboration with the Municipal Authority for Immigrant Absorption

Group 2 : Parents from the LGBTQ Community
- in collaboration with the Tel Aviv Municipal LGBTQ Community Center

Group 3: Parents of Premature Babies
- in collaboration with the NICU at Lis Maternity and Women’s Hospital

The selected musicians underwent professional online training by a Teaching Artist from the international project, enabling them to join the Lullaby Project artist community and participate in future projects.
The pilot also included a professional writing instructor.

- The framework was based on a group workshop with five pairs of parents and five artists, involving introductions, discussions on the unique contribution of poetry and music to the family unit and each participant’s personal connection to music, both as children and as parents. During the workshop, each pair of parents was matched with a musician, and together they worked on creating a lullaby - from writing the lyrics to developing the melody and recording it. The songwriting process was based on a preliminary writing task given to the parents, where they were asked to think about their baby and write a few lines that described the baby’s personality or express a heartfelt wish or blessing for them. With the musicians’ guidance and the parents’ input, the melody was composed to reflect the family’s identity and the uniqueness of the lyrics. At the end of the session, they recorded the finished piece - a personal, lullaby composed just for them.

At the end of the process, the parents received a letter with suggestions on how to continue using the lullaby they had created. The focus was on strengthening the parent-child bond, making eye contact, and singing together in various moments: before bedtime, during bath time or playtime, with family, and in everyday activities such as car rides, doing laundry, or going for a walk.

From pilot to scale: The project was designed from the outset to suit the diverse population of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, with a focus on learning and gaining valuable insights from the initial pilot phase. Now, we are setting our sights on substantial expansion, aiming to reach more families from a wide range of communities across the city.

Partnering municipal units: The Community, Culture and Sports Administration; the Culture Department; the Felicia Blumenthal Center for Music, the Tel Aviv Municipal LGBTQ Community Center; the Authority for Immigrant Absorption

Number of Participants

5-6 pairs of parents in each group

Duration of the Activity

3-4 hours

Location

Community centers and cultural and music centers

Cost Components

* One-time training for musicians * Salary for musicians * Activity space * Advertising

Suitable for Ages

Parents of babies aged birth to six months

Impact

Music is good for toddlers - supports brain development, communication with parents in the pre-verbal stage, has a calming effect.
The creative process encouraged parents to deepen their connection and bond with their baby and provided an opportunity to express experiences, feelings and emotions in a creative way.

Singing has a calming and grounding effect for parents in times of need. Regular singing can be a type of portable sanctuary for parents, much like a transitional object. A personal song, created by the parents, can be carried with them at all times, like a mantra. This kind of singing has a soothing effect, reducing stress for parents and, in turn, for the babies as well.
A bonding experience for couples - In most activities designed for early childhood, only one partner is present. In this project, however, both parents were required to participate, and participants reported that it provided an opportunity to spend quality time together and strengthen their relationship. The shared creative process allowed both parents to connect in a supportive way and encouraged them to create a meaningful, family-oriented experience.

Participants reported that the preliminary task and guided writing contributed to shaping the song, and that positive relationships were formed with the musicians.
Most of the parents reported being satisfied with the song and anticipated that they would use it.
High satisfaction among all participants and a willingness to recommend it to others.

What we learned along the way

Careful attention should be given to selecting the musicians for this project - creating a customized song requires musicians to step out of their comfort zone and face several challenges: working creatively with parents who are not professionals in the field, contributing to the lyric-writing process (which may not come naturally to some), accommodating the couple’s wishes beyond their own musical inclinations as artists, and being emotionally prepared to be exposed to complex personal stories.
Collaboration with a music professional for selecting musicians – the recruitment process was carried out in collaboration with the musical director of the Community Administration and the director of the Felicia Blumenthal Music Center.
Couples for the pilot were recruited through the community managers in a targeted manner, ensuring compatibility and commitment to the process.
Designing the pilot to support scalable growth - in developing the pilot, we prioritized creating a structure that could be expanded to reach a broader audience. This led us to make resource-conscious decisions regarding the number of sessions, level of production and musical arrangement, and the inclusion of developmental content.
Flexibility in adapting to the community’s unique characteristics and the project’s requirements within the city - we drew on extensive knowledge accumulated over the years at Carnegie Hall, giving ourselves the freedom to make adjustments that would support the project’s success with Israeli audiences and the specific communities we chose to work with.