Songbirds in the Classroom
Photos from Songbirds sessions with Travis and Rogue Valley students.
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Music, storytelling, folk traditions, and creative play, brought to K–3 classrooms, libraries, and community spaces throughout Southern Oregon.
Songbirds Music brings music, storytelling, and folk traditions into K–3rd grade classrooms through six-week residencies built on singing, clapping, rhythm, and hands-on arts projects. Travis Puntarelli inherited the program from Rogue World Music in 2021 and has directed it ever since. Today it forms the foundation of the School of Bardic Arts.
Songbirds emphasizes participation over performance: children learn folk songs as ways of play and connection, discovering music from cultures and traditions around the world through singing games, storytelling, and hands-on projects. In the 2025–26 school year, Songbirds reached more than 400 students in 26 classrooms at four partner schools, in a low-income district where music is often the first subject to be cut. Over the next three years, we plan to expand both the breadth and the depth of the program.
Figures from the Bardic Arts Impact Report, FY 25–26.
“Travis from Songbirds has brought joy, engagement, rhythm, spoken story and cultural curiosity to my kindergarten classrooms for the past four school years. He is by far one of the main highlights of the well-rounded program we strive to provide to the low-income families of the Phoenix-Talent School District. The children sing and chant his songs far beyond his time in the classroom. By tapping into their musical brains, Travis is deepening their neural pathways while preserving the innocence and developmentally appropriate practices of early childhood education. I am in hopes of our continued collaboration.” Marla Dentino, Phoenix Elementary School Educator, Two-Way Immersion Program
Photos from Songbirds sessions with Travis and Rogue Valley students.
Songbirds currently visits Phoenix Elementary, Talent Elementary, and Orchard Hill Elementary in the Phoenix-Talent School District each month, along with The Starlight Waldorf School for Children, with outreach underway into Ashland, Medford, and area libraries. The program is exploring expansion into additional grade levels, educator training opportunities, and a portable performance program featuring storytelling, puppetry, costumes, and character-based folk education inspired by traditions from around the world.
To create learning experiences that inspire joy, engagement, rhythm, storytelling, and cultural curiosity in children, using music and folk arts to support healthy development while preserving the wonder, creativity, and playfulness that are essential to childhood.
Partner With Songbirds