Lois Lilienstein, of the Children’s Trio Sharon, Lois & Bram, Dies at 78
Source: NYT
Lois Lilienstein, whose sunny personality and tuneful, bell-clear voice were central to the live and televised performances of Sharon, Lois & Bram, the Canadian singing group popular among young children and their families, died on Wednesday at her home in Toronto. She was 78.
The cause was cancer, her son, David, told The Associated Press.
A trained pianist and singer, Ms. Lilienstein was an American Midwesterner who in 1966 moved with her husband, Ernest, to Toronto, where she began performing for and teaching music to preschoolers and other children. In the 1970s, she met Sharon Hampson and Bramwell Morrison when all three were performing at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Orillia, Ontario, north of Toronto. They released an album of eclectic folk songs for children, One Elephant, Deux Éléphants, in 1978, and began touring with a show that often encouraged singalongs and other forms of audience participation.
Their profile was raised in 1984 with the premiere of their television show, Sharon, Lois & Brams Elephant Show (initially merely The Elephant Show), featuring the trio; another childrens entertainer, Eric Nagler; an actor in a cheery elephant costume, Paula Gallivan; and both child and adult guests. The show was on the Canadian Broadcasting Company until January 1989, and in reruns on the Nickelodeon cable channel in the late 1980s and the 1990s.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/arts/music/lois-lilienstein-78-of-the-childrens-trio-sharon-lois-bram-is-dead.html
AleksS
(1,665 posts)We had some music DVDs that my daughter loved to listen to when she was a toddler. Many (most?) of the songs came from perfomances on The Elephant Show.
Good memories.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)Maeve
(42,282 posts)All four of my kids watched that...I have a tape around here somewhere....
catrose
(5,066 posts)Actual, real, quality music for children. What a concept! I didn't realize for a while how unusual that was. My son (now 35) will be heartbroken.