By the Way: A tribute to health workers around the world

A globe-trotting singer/songwriter who lives on a Springfield Township farm is helping children around the world to celebrate the medical professionals who have set aside their own lives to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou’s newest song, “Thanks to the Doctors and Nurses,” is scheduled for release Feb. 11. It’s been described as a kids’ pandemic tribute to the health care workers who have fought so hard to save lives.
The song has its origins in a virtual workshop Dara did with immigrant children learning English as a second language, she said. “We sang a song and then I told them, ‘Put your own words to the music. Let’s see what you can do.’ What they came up with was surprising. It was so beautiful. Children are so creative.
“I asked their permission to work on it and then I massaged it.” Characteristically modest, she said, “The children really did the lion’s share of the work.”
The tune, Daria said, is based on a South African song called “Here come our mothers bringing us presents.”
Considered “an ambassador of song,” Daria has traveled the world for four decades, offering concerts and workshops in 17 countries and teaching children about world peace and understanding.
Performing with a truly rich voice and a wide variety of languages and ethnic instruments she’s unraveled the mysteries of music for children.
Over the years she has won four Parents Choice Awards and Parents and Teachers Choice Awards along with many other educational and children’s music awards.
A song she wrote about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is used in classrooms throughout this country to celebrate his life and legacy. A CD, “Yes, We Can,” includes lyrics that support former President Barack Obama’s plan for building a better nation.
Daria is a graduate of Friends World College, founded by Quakers but now a part of Long Island University. She holds a degree in ethnomusicology, the study of folk and primitive music and their relationships to the peoples and cultures to which they belong.
Born in this country Daria has a Russian and Greek background. When she was a child she lived in Peru, where she has been officially accepted into the culture of the Quechua, the descendants of the Inca Empire.

She sings songs from American and world folk music in an astonishing array of languages – English, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, German, and Oneida, the Iroquois tongue.
“Music is a great medium,” she said. “It was music that brought my husband and me together.” He has built sound studios for the likes of Will Smith. The couple have two grown children.
Pandemic travel bans brought Daria’s international journeys to a halt but she has been doing a series of virtual workshops for children and has done some pro bono shows for PBS WLVT-TV in Bethlehem.
Having children in the audience create their own lyrics actually sprang from the challenge of adapting real performances to virtual ones.
Daria said her normal performances were intensely interactive. At her concerts and workshops she would introduce children to authentic ethnic instruments. They could include buffalo and Pueblo drums or an African shakere, a gourd covered with a netting of beads, or a rattle-like instrument made of a donkey’s jawbone. The children would make music with these.
Virtual shows couldn’t accommodate that action so she encouraged the children to put their own words to the music. The surprising result was her new song.
She said she believes her musical activities help to “build bridges of understanding so we’re not destroying this beautiful world we live in.”
She has developed accompanying lyric sheets for the song as well as a karaoke version, posters and thank you cards for classroom use as well as a practical way to thank specific health care providers. They are available on the TeachersPayTeachers.com website.
kathyclark817@gmail.com

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