Oran Etkin & Friends

Jazz clarinetist Oran Etkin’s recent release, Finding Friends Far From Home, is a playful tale told through instruments from Zimbabwe to China. Join Etkin and his musical friend Clara Net (his clarinet) and hear enchanting tunes from this captivating album—a musical journey that transcends borders.

Voted #1 Rising Star Clarinetist in Downbeat Magazine’s Critic’s Poll, Oran Etkin performs at major international festivals and venues.  With this project, he took time off between shows to live with traditional mbira masters in Zimbabwe, building collaborative projects with Roma (Gypsy) musicians in Czech Republic and gathering the fruits of these and other global collaborations into a family-friendly album that tells a tale of friendship and understanding through the eyes of the instruments themselves.

For nearly a decade, Etkin’s Timbalooloo program has created a paradigm shift in music education, instilling the idea of music as communication and dialogue by making instruments come alive and talk with each other. This innovative approach has attracted the attention of thousands of parents, including Naomi Watts, Live Schreiber, Harvey Keitel, Martha Stewart, Ken Burns and Edie Falco, all of whom enrolled their children or grand-children in Etkin’s Timbalooloo program.

Oran Etkin’s Timbalooloo is a WBGO partner.