Oy, Mama!

On Sunday March 9 at 4:30, young children, young families—in fact, anyone with a youthful spirit—will have a chance to sing and dance with the award-winning Mama Doni and the Mama Doni Band as they celebrate Jewish culture through a contagious blend of contemporary American bluegrass, reggae, rock, disco, Latin, and klezmer music.

Mama Doni’s hour-long show will be a “first” for Providence. For the first time, Boston’s immensely successful Boston Jewish Music Festival is collaborating with Providence’s Temple Emanu-El to bring one of its exciting concerts to Providence. The festival’s five weeks of Jewish music performances, given at concert sites scattered throughout Eastern New England, feature top-flight soloists and groups. Mama Doni’s show for youngsters and their parents, as well as for their bubbes and zaydes, promises to be the most interactive and engaging of them all.

Quirky, offbeat, and unpredictable, Mama Doni’s concerts are filled with sing-alongs, impromptu dancing, catchy pop tunes, and lots of ruach (spirit). As the Boston Globe says:  “Who can resist ‘Latke Man,’ ‘La Vida Dreidel,’ ‘Dear Hanukah Harry,’ and other oy so catchy titles? New Jersey’s Mama Doni makes a zany musical chicken soup of reggae, rock, disco, Latin, klezmer, and other styles.”

While sometimes labeled ‘offbeat,’ Mama Doni is very clear about her intentions. “The thing about me is I’m a spiritual Jewish person. Everything is Judaically correct in my songs — I love and respect the tradition,” she told New York Times reporter Tammy La Gorce. “I’m not trying to mock it. I’m trying to show how cool it is.”

Doni Zasloff Thomas – aka Mama Doni, is a mother of two, a music teacher, and a songwriter, as well as lead singer for The Mama Doni Band. They have twice won the Parents’ Choice Foundation’s awards for quality audio media, once in 2011 for the CD, “Shabbat Shaboom” and again in 2013 for the CD “Emunah,” which Zasloff Thomas describes as, “a collection of songs of life, love and hope.”

Tickets to Mama Doni’s concert on Sunday March 9 at 4:30 p.m. in Temple Emanu-El’s Main Sanctuary are available through the 2014 Boston Jewish Music Festival, bostonjewishmusicfestival.org. Adults: $10; Children $5.