Transforming the lives of children through music has been a key part of the work of choir Ex Cathedra. Christopher Morley reports.
When the Government introduced its plan to get every primary aged child in the country to sing five years ago, Ex Cathedra was already bringing the power of song to Birmingham school children.
The chamber choir, with its strong emphasis on education, has been working with city schools since 1988 and is not only set to deliver the singing element in all primary schools across Birmingham this academic year but is also delivering projects across the country and as far away as Bangkok and New Zealand.
Rebecca Ledgard has been co-ordinating Ex Cathedra’s education programme since 2000, and in 2008 was given the newly-created post of director of education, working in tandem with singer and teacher Ula Weber.
“Ex Cathedra will be celebrating 25 years of education and participation work in 2014,” Rebecca says. “Education work has been central to our vision from the beginning.”
This is no piecemeal dabbling in outreach work, as Rebecca explains.
“We’ve always worked closely with music services, but in 2007 we began working very extensively with music services across the UK through the Government singing initiative for every primary aged child in the country, Sing Up.
“Through a combination of training for music service staff, training for school staff, large-scale workshops for schoolchildren, in-school workshops and extensive resources we implemented our Singing Playgrounds project in many schools.
“We took children to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, we had 2,000 children (every child from 10 schools) singing in a park in Derby, we took children to perform at a global summit in London on stage with Desmond Tutu.
“We’ve built on and developed this work and now are working very closely with Birmingham Music Service through the work of the Birmingham Music Education Hub, funded by the Arts Council through the National Plan for Music Education. We’re implementing Singing Playgrounds in 288 of the 317 primary schools in the city.”
And one teacher at a recent Singing Playgrounds day in Aston said: “This is really special! It’s the best project I’ve ever been involved in, and particularly in terms of ownership for the children.”
All the vocal tutors are singing members of Ex Cathedra itself, aided by accompanist Rob Challinor.
“Amongst the team are qualified teachers, conductors, workshop leaders, professional singers, singing teachers,” says Rebecca.
“ The project has now been implemented in 500 schools across the UK, and we’ve also taken it to schools in New Zealand, Thailand and China. The project is for every member of a primary school, and at its heart we train a group of children to lead the singing games in the playground.”
Rebecca explains how the system works.
“In each school we train children to lead the singing games in the playground and they are given the title song leader. Through the Birmingham project there are 8,640 Singing Playgrounds song leaders in the city.
These children are leading others in their playgrounds in singing games from around the world – ones that we have taught them, ones that they may already know from their own backgrounds, and ones they have adapted or created themselves.”
And she warms with enthusiasm about Ex Cathedra’s educational vision for the future.
“We’re in exciting times. We would love to see every school in the country implementing Singing Playgrounds.
‘‘We passionately believe that it is the way to get children and teachers singing – discovering all the benefits of singing together – development of musicianship and vocal skills and development of personal and social skills.
‘‘It’s fun, there is a huge feel-good factor, it uses all your body and all your brain, and is a wonderful activity for children to do together. Singing games are the beginnings of a musical life.”
Ex Cathedra has also launched a Singing Medicine project, aimed at helping children recover from illness whilst in hospital.
Ex Cathedra singers and accredited vocal tutors involve young patients in singing games and interactive exercises, just as though they were in a classroom or school playground.
The project has received funding from the BBC’s Children in Need campaign.
“We would love to see every child in hospital able to participate in our Singing Medicine activities,” Rebecca says.
She says funding from Children in Need and Youth Music has enabled the choir to deliver the project every week for the next three years at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
The project is also run at Heartlands Hospital following funding from facilities management company G4S and the choir is also looking to begin the project at Warwick Hospital for five years.
Ex Cathedra artistic director Jeffrey Skidmore said he has always had a passion for education since launching the choir 40 years ago.
He said: “In the early years this was quite informal but very successful.
“We have over the years developed an amazing team of vocal tutors and Rebecca has been running the show since early this century and became director of education in 2008, although I am still artistic director and am involved directly with some projects. There is still much to do.”
Jeffrey’s dream is to create a Singing City, where Birmingham would be a beacon of vocal involvement in schools and hospitals.
“We have before us the best opportunity to deliver Ex Cathedra’s big vision – the Singing City. Also to grow audiences and develop more local talent. All the relevant parties are at last talking and we are establishing a key role in this dialogue.”
