Deb Cavanaugh has spent more than four decades in music — singing harmony before age four, performing Duke Ellington’s sacred music as a teenager in a choir he personally directed, later backing folk singer Melanie on stages in Albany and Saratoga Springs. When she steps into Caffè Lena on Friday mornings as Miss Deb, mountain dulcimer in hand and colorful percussion props arrayed across the floor, she brings every year of that learning into a room where the youngest participants may not yet know the word for what they are doing. Her fall class series begins Friday, September 25.
About the Show
Music with Miss Deb is a nine-session family folk class series through Caffè Lena’s School of Music, designed for children from birth through age four. Each session draws children into singing, movement, and hands-on engagement with percussion instruments and colorful props, working within what Cavanaugh describes as an “organic learning setting.” The curriculum weaves songs from multiple cultures alongside traditional folk music, keeping rhythm, melody, and physical connection at the center of every hour.
Cavanaugh is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and educator who received the 2025 Capital District Thomas Edison Award for Folk/Traditional Artist of the Year. She is the director and registered teacher of Heldeberg Music Together and brings more than 45 years of experience across an unusually wide range of musical forms. Her primary instrument is the mountain dulcimer; she also plays limberjack and crankie. Her recorded work includes five albums, among them Tunes for Tots and Love Songs and Lullabies (with ensemble Dandelion Wine), and since 2020 she has developed an extensive video library of thematic episodes for families. Among her more remarkable artistic engagements: she participated in a women’s orchestra recreation — originally assembled among prisoners at the Birkenau concentration camp — that performed at venues including St. John the Divine in New York City, Berlin, and Ravensbrück in 2009 and again in 2015.
Venue & Logistics
Caffè Lena on Phila Street in Saratoga Springs is an intimate folk club and listening room that occupies a place of its own in the capital region’s roots music community. For a class built around small-group singing, hand percussion, and the particular warmth of a mountain dulcimer in an acoustic space, it is a natural fit. The September 25 session runs 10:15–11 a.m.
Tickets
The full nine-session series is priced at $120. Scholarships are available for families who need them — contact Caffè Lena by email for details. Additional dates and times are available through Active.com. Enroll for the series