Max Meyer: A Music Together^® Baby Becomes a Broadway Baby

In 1999, when Max Meyer was just three-and-a-half months old, his mom, Cynthia Dreeman Meyer, signed them up for Music Together classes in Chester, New Jersey—and they kept coming until Max was in full-time preschool. Around that time, Cynthia, an attorney, realized she was ready for a career change. Instead of returning to practicing law, she took a chance and became a Music Together licensee.

Cynthia remembers, “Music Together was initially just a class we took, but when I decided I couldn’t see myself returning to work full-time, Sandy [the center director] suggested I start teaching for her. I took the Teacher Training and then, when the opportunity to buy the Chester location came up, I thought it would be a great way to make the business more my own. I’ve been teaching and running my center ever since. It’s so joyful and rewarding!”

Meanwhile, Max’s musicality continued to grow, as he took piano and drum lessons, and discovered that he loved performing and wanted to pursue it professionally. Music Together remained important to him even as he became a part of his high school’s theater and instrumental programs and eventually went on to study percussion at New York University, where he graduated in 2021.

Max says, “I’ve always been conscious of my mom teaching Music Together, and I would often be around while she was doing it, so I got to know all of the music really well. When I was a senior in high school, my mom and I did a music residency program at the preschool I went to, and I took the Music Together Teacher Training so that I could teach with my mom. After that, all throughout college, I was the person who taught summer sessions at Music Together of Chester.”

Creating a family music business seemed natural to Cynthia, though she does not have formal music training. She says that, while Max can explain a rhythm pattern with music theory, she just knows that it works, which she credits to her own musical upbringing.

“It's such a testament to the Music Together approach, because the whole way I learned music was by being in this wonderful musical family. I grew up like a Music Together kid. On the weekends, everybody from our building would gather in our apartment, and it was drums and guitars and dancing and singing, making music in a family environment. Now, it’s come full circle, from my father as a musician to me with Music Together, and now Max teaching and performing. Sadly, my father died when Max was two, but we have pictures of my dad with a big drum and Max on his lap. Dad would play, and then stop and let Max play, very much in a Music Together way. And now Max is carrying on my dad’s legacy as a professional percussionist!”

From Music Together to the Bright Lights of Broadway

These days, Max is as a member of the New York cast of the iconic stage show, STOMP. After graduating from NYU, Max went to an open casting call and he got the gig! The long-running show features trash cans and brooms and other unorthodox ways to make music. Max has been a part of both the New York and touring companies for over a year now.

Max sees a connection between his experiences with Music Together and being a part of STOMP, particularly in how the show makes the audience part of the music-making.

“One of the biggest aspects of STOMP that's important to its success over these long years is that there are eight people on a stage and there's no written storyline, but the ninth member of the show is the audience. All of us up on the stage are showing them things to do. Like we clap twice and then they clap twice, and it's a call-and-response. It’s very similar to the rhythm pattern we do in class!”

Max continues to be a part of Music Together of Chester, too, teaching as many classes as he can, often alongside his mom.

“I really, really like Music Together because it's such a wonderful creative outlet and such a really cool way to connect with kids. I just had one of my students and her mom come to see me in STOMP. Cordelia, my student, came up to me afterwards, just as if she had been to a class. Connecting with the audience during a show is similar to connecting with students in class, and it’s one of the things I like best, both about being a teacher and a performer.”

The Intersection of Music and Culture

Max playing Gyil (pronounced “Jeel”) in Medea, Ghana in 2019

In addition to his work as a STOMP performer, Max is very interested in ethnomusicology and the study of how music affects our culture and how culture affects music. He is particularly interested in West African percussion (which had also been an interest of his grandfather), including the differences between West African percussion and Western classical music, how they influence each other, and how we have so much to learn from each other.

While at NYU, Max studied with Valerie Dee Naranjo, who wrote the orchestrations for The Lion King pit orchestra, has been in the pit since the show opened, and is a percussionist on Saturday Night Live. She became a mentor of his, and in summer 2019, he had the opportunity to travel to Ghana with her.

Max says, “Valerie and I have traveled a lot together, to different parts of this country and, in 2019, to West Africa. Through her, I was able to secure a residency with the National Orchestra of Ghana, so I spent time in the capital doing that; then, Valerie and I traveled the country, learning West African percussion and dance. It was an amazing experience that has impacted my teaching and the work I do on STOMP.”

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