“Songwriting has always been the space where I have explored ideas and experimented creatively,” says Juliane Jones ’01, the creator of Panda Corner, a children’s education brand introducing the next generation to music from around the globe while also equipping them with the tools to express themselves. “For me, songwriting is the perfect space for imagination and different types of storytelling, exploring characters, and understanding different cultures.”

      Founded in 2017, Panda Corner was born out of Jones’s desire to write an album that would teach basic Chinese language skills and help children learn about Chinese music and culture. Nearly a decade after the release of that first record, Adventures in China, Panda Corner’s ever-expanding catalog now comprises a dozen kids’ albums featuring the voices of leading Broadway youth performers, as well as an extensive library of online video content, interactive multimedia apps, and music and reading curricula tailored for children up to 8 years old. “Music is a really powerful way to unlock learning,” Jones explains. “It increases your focus and improves short-term and long-term memory, so if you learn something with music, you recall it more quickly. It’s this amazing hack for learning.”

      The daughter of a speech pathologist and a pediatric ear, nose, and throat surgeon, Jones was exposed to principles of childhood development from an early age. At the same time, her home was filled with music—from opera and rock to the stylings of folk singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and James Taylor—and she, too, played piano and guitar and began writing her own songs as a child.

      “Songs felt like their own small worlds—places to test emotions, language, stories, and different perspectives,” she says. At Taft, her passion for composition only grew, and after graduation, she continued her studies at the University of Chicago, before earning a Fulbright grant to study at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and completing her doctoral work at the University of British Columbia. Influenced by her time in China, Jones was particularly interested in incorporating global musical traditions into her work, even forming a band that blended pop with Chinese instruments like the stringed pipa and flute-like dizi. So it was only natural that she would combine her passion for music and interest in early education into Panda Corner.

      Nine years later, Jones continues to compose, record, and mix the music of Panda Corner, but she’s now joined by a network of eight developers, animators, and educators spread across three continents. Each album they produce features a main story, accompanied by six instantly indelible songs and interactive games that teach everything from basic language skills to introductory piano technique and fundamentals of rhythm, inviting children to discover the music and cultures of Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, and beyond. The team has also placed its materials directly into classrooms, with lesson plans designed for preschool and elementary school teachers that require no previous background in music.

      “It’s a very old story: You pair information with music to help people remember it—think about The Iliad or The Odyssey. At Panda Corner, we’ve taken that idea and brought it to another level,” Jones says. “But unlike a lot of material for kids, children don’t just consume our content; they actively participate in it. Music becomes a tool for expression, learning, and imagination!”