Tony Corsano gives a TonyTunes performance at Carytown’s Cartwheels & Coffee in December.
Tony Corsano thumps a steady rhythm on his conga drum as a dozen wriggling toddlers enthusiastically flail their bodies, dancing with the blissful abandon of the very young. “Play when the drum says play now, play when the drum says play,” he sings, “but when the drum says stop, we stop.”
The beat falls out, and the kids freeze, bound by the spell Corsano has cast with his song. They look up at him, wide eyes awaiting instruction. “That’s good listening,” he encourages them before picking up the beat again.
“Play When the Drum Says Play” is one of the songs Corsano has written for TonyTunes, a roving musical program for children ages 1 to 5. Corsano’s 30-minute set is packed with coordinated motion, silly props and gummy smiles.
It’s not exactly the career you would expect from a Fordham-trained former corporate lawyer, but Corsano says he was never meant to spend years filing motions and preparing briefings in a posh New York office. When he says he “lost his way,” he means by going to law school and practicing law. “I was good at it,” he says, “but it became apparent to me early on that you had to live a certain lifestyle, go to certain restaurants, play golf, dress a certain way. That wasn’t who I was.” Finding his way after a self-described “midlife crisis” meant taking a step back from his family and leaving his New York law firm in an attempt to get back to who he really was: a musician at heart.
At left, mom Meredith Weber dances with kids Brady, 3 1/2, and Bella, 2.
Corsano quit practicing law in 1994. He rented a practice space in Manhattan and lived there, immersing himself in his music. Shortly thereafter, he toured Europe and the U.S. with the no-wave/punk act James Chance and the Contortions.
But life on tour was exhausting, and Corsano quickly saw that being on the road was equally unsuited for his preferred lifestyle, one in which he could be present for his wife and daughter. That’s when he began to gravitate toward children’s music. As a kid growing up in the Bronx, Corsano had spent countless hours with best friend Rob McGrath in the home of Bob McGrath, better known as Bob from “Sesame Street.”
“When my parents split up, I lived almost every week for a day or two in the McGrath house,” Corsano says, “and that really affected me, because [Bob] was always so happy.” Corsano saw McGrath find success with music and enjoy his life while doing so, and that stuck with him. “I watched him make a very successful career doing music with kids,” he remembers. “When I was burning out on the drummer stuff, that started to resonate.” He started “The Family Jam,” a precursor to TonyTunes, based in New York.
Corsano performs weekly at Cartwheels & Coffee and Perk! Bon Air, in addition to other public and private gigs.
Not long after this lightbulb moment, Corsano and his wife, Anaïs, now with a small child of their own, saw that rising rents in Brooklyn were making it nearly impossible to stay put. They weighed their options: Long Island, New Jersey or somewhere new. In 2018, after two trips to Richmond — chosen for its location, weather, affordability and culture — they picked up and relocated to Bon Air, where Corsano launched TonyTunes, for which he writes original songs, performs, records and does his own booking, a more suitably flexible but nonetheless full-time job. Corsano performs weekly at Cartwheels & Coffee in Carytown (free with admission) and Perk! Bon Air ($5 per child), in addition to monthly gigs at cultural arts centers, preschools and private parties.
TonyTunes is built to entertain a variety of audiences, from babes in arms to grown-ups at yoga retreats. “It’s about putting an instrument in someone’s hand and energizing them.” At 60 years old, Corsano is confident in his unique approach. He’s like a coach before the big game, with alpha energy that wakes people up and makes them move: “From the very beginning, I knew I didn’t have the warm-and-fuzzy thing. I’m not Mr. Rogers; I’m the coach. That’s who I am, so that’s what I bring.”
Corsano combines four elements — visual, tactile, verbal and aural — to create a multisensory experience that’s fast-paced and educational, relating to one of three themes: movement, vocabulary or literacy. “I don’t do values. I leave that to Raffi and everybody else,” Corsano notes. “My big complaint about a lot of my peers is that some of this stuff is too heady to me. These kids are 2, take it easy. Let’s just jump. Kids wanna move, they wanna yell, they wanna hit things,” he says.
At Perk! Bon Air, toddlers and their caregivers sit with their elbows touching, their puffy winter coats shuffling against one another in the rectangular play space. Corsano calls each child by name in a song that encourages everyone to say “Hello!” to one another, and the room feels alive with energy, like any good live music experience does. He sees many of the same faces, TonyTunes groupies, week after week.
With younger audiences, “The gigs are shorter, and the audiences are more appreciative,” he says. “There is zero downtime, because I’ve learned if you lose an audience, your goose is cooked. That’s showbiz.”
Never miss a Sunday Story: Sign up for the newsletter, and we’ll drop a fresh read into your inbox at the start of each week. To keep up with the latest posts, search for the hashtag #SundayStory on Twitter and Facebook.
