French horn player and music professor Jill van Nostrand is getting back to her family’s roots. The van Nostrands, she says, were among the first Dutch settlers of what’s now Brooklyn and Long Island, arriving in 1638. “That part of my family has been here ever since,” says the Staten Island native. Today she lives in an 18th-century farmhouse on two acres in Hewitt, New Jersey, about 50 miles northwest of the city.

“It’s about as rural as New Jersey can get.”

Jill’s life in the country is quite a contrast from the bustle and bombast of Broadway—where you’ll often find her in the pit—or, for that matter, from the more mellow atmosphere of Carnegie Hall, where she has played in the McGraw-Hill Companies’ CarnegieKids concerts since the debut of the Brass Family program, Treasure on ABAGAB Island, which returns to Kaplan Space October 29 through November 9.

Two years ago, the last time she played in CarnegieKids, Jill was eight months pregnant with her son. Becoming a mother has altered her perspective on how she views her role as a musician.

“You get more focused on presenting your children with really good educational programming, getting them involved in live performance and something that they’re excited about,” she says.

This professor at Farleigh Dickinson University and New Jersey City University sees the need to draw children into music early on. Many of the young people she meets, even at the college level, have never heard a live musical performance, says Jill, and live performances, especially with orchestras, are what convinced her to become a musician. As she sees it, her role in CarnegieKids is to inspire children to stay involved in live music, making it a central part of their lives—especially in our digital era.

“We don’t want our music culture to be boiled down to the MP3 player … It’s not just shrinking down the technology, it’s shrinking down the entire experience.”

Jill is talking about experiences like the jam sessions she has in her farmhouse, mother on horn, father on guitar, son banging away on piano or percussion. Much like what was once common in American homes, these family affairs leave her young son completely enthralled.

“His eyes light up when we all play together,” she says.

No doubt Jill will be bringing this same sense of excitement and energy from her family farmhouse in New Jersey to a new family of CarnegieKids for Treasure on ABAGAB Island.