About Hummingbirds Music
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Kevin and Rebecca have worked together on various projects including the recording for Junior Voiceworks at Christmas (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/junior-voiceworks-at-christmas--cd-9780193392816?cc=gb&lang=en&) and the Festival of Voices projects for children held in the West Midlands.
More recently, they have formed a successful song writing partnership under the banner of Hummingbirds Music. |
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About Rebecca |
About Kevin |
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Rebecca is a teacher, Makaton tutor and musician with a passion for writing and sharing music, particularly with children. She believes music offers huge pleasure and enjoyment and provides a powerful means of encouraging cooperation and inclusion, celebrating diversity and building self-esteem.
Since qualifying as a teacher in 2003, Rebecca has delivered the music curriculum across the primary age range and established two award winning choirs for children aged 5 to 7 and 7 to 11. |
Kevin taught music in Oxfordshire schools for ten years before moving to the University of Wolverhampton in 1995. Here, his work centred around training primary music specialists and teaching on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Music and Popular Music. He was the Director of the University Chamber Choir and had responsibilities for Performance & Outreach in the School of Performing Arts before taking up his current role with Coventry Music Service in 2019. Kevin has many interests as a musician and teacher with strengths in performance, improvisation, composition, theory, aural and choral music.
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Signed song has become very popular in the last few years and many schools, including the school where Rebecca teaches, now have Makaton signing choirs. Combining sign and song enhances the experience of all participants and allows young people who have limited language and communication skills to reap the emotional & creative benefits that arise through the fusion of singing and signing.
An increasing number of mainstream schools also use Makaton within their setting on a daily basis where there are children with English as an additional language, where signs and symbols can act as a common thread between languages.
The use of Makaton can encourage a sense of community, allowing all children to communicate with each other. With this in mind, many of the songs and music resources featured on this site include Makaton signing. |
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This is something Rebecca feels particularly passionate about as her son, Jacob, has Down’s Syndrome and has used Makaton from a very early age. Using Makaton provides a truly unique experience for performers and audiences alike so if you haven’t tried it yet, why not give it a go!
Currently working on...
Their most recent composition projects include two new cantatas for children. The Creature Cantata with the theme of endangered animals and Planet Blue based around the issues of climate change are due to be performed in 2023. In 2022, they celebrated Coventry as the UK City of Culture with the hugely successful Cultural Cantata. - check out the Hummingbirds Music tab for more information.
Coventry Cultural Cantata June 2022 - Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre (above)
and Central Methodist Hall, Coventry (below)
