PlayLab: Music and Culture with Mr. Rayz!

Celebrate Asian Heritage Month in PlayLab with Mr. Rayz and the vibrant sounds of Indonesia’s angklung. Through storytelling and performance, this program invites young visitors to experience how music connects people and cultures. Join us for a lively, family-friendly way to explore music, culture, and sound together. 12:00 pm – World Music: History of the Indonesian Angklung 1:00 pm – Live Music Performance Mr. Rayz is a children’s entertainer, educator, and virtual performer who has been working with kids from all backgrounds for over twenty years. From his start working in an orphanage in Guyana, South America to now, he knows that it is music, story and presence that can really impact a child's life. Long before he became Mr. Rayz, Ray Van Gobel pursued child counselling studies at a small international school in Seattle Washington. From there he worked with Super Saturday Kids Club , a ministry that reached over three hundred children from low income families in Surrey BC. Further in his career he also pioneered two after school kids clubs in South Calgary. And now Mr. Rayz has headlined the Grand Prairie Children's Festival 4th St Lilac Festival, Sunfest, Calgary's own Create Children's Festival and dozens of preschools, ymcas, libraries, elementary schools and childcare centres in Calgary and Alberta. PlayLab is a hands-on sound playground where young visitors can discover how music works. With interactive stations that feature strings, wind, percussion, and electronic instruments, kids experiment with the building blocks of sound—pitch, volume, timbre, and vibration. Pluck a string, strike a drum, blow into an organ, or shape sound on a synth to hear how instruments create their unique voices. Designed for curiosity and creativity, PlayLab encourages visitors to listen closely, explore freely, and learn how musicians turn sound into music. *PlayLab is made possible with support from the Alberta Museums Association and the Radomski Foundation.