Ex Cathedra’s ChoirMaker programme has been created by our award-winning Education and Participation team with the aim of enabling and inspiring you and your students to establish and develop a thriving school choir.
The programme is designed to support and enable secondary school teachers who want to build a culture of singing together in their schools but are unsure of how to go about it. With the click of a button you will have our team of vocal tutors, instrumentalists and conductors in your classroom.
Designed for Year 7, ChoirMaker takes teachers and students through a carefully designed set of 10 online chapters, with each chapter being based on one song. Alongside the music notation there is a range of audio-visual resources to support you and your students. Some resources are for teachers, to aid you as the choir leader. Most are aimed at your students and include demo-performances, demonstrations of voice parts, warm-ups, and a range of interactive activities such as exploring call and response or showing your students how to add percussion. There are extension activities and further performances to view which we hope will inspire you all. You know your pupils best so you can choose to progress through the chapters at a speed of your choosing.
‘Friendship’- Ex Cathedra Singing Day at Kings High School, Warwick (Photo by KHS)
Gemma King, Suzzie Vango (Photo by Simon Peter King)
“The work of your team was crucial for moulding our community”
Ben Keeling, Head Master, Shrewsbury International School, Hong Kong
Dan Ludford-Thomas (Photo by Simon Peter King)
Rob Challinor, Ruairi Edwards
Simone Rebello (Photo by Simon Peter King)
‘Shalawala’ led by Dan Ludford-Thomas at Shrewsbury International School Bangkok
“The finest choral educators you can find anywhere”
John Moore, Former Director of Music at Shrewsbury School
All our songs and activities have been developed through working in hundreds of primary and secondary schools over many years. We hope this programme will lead pupils from any Singing Playgrounds or SingMaker activities they may have taken part in in their primary schools to continuing to love singing at secondary school.
Kadialy Kouyate (Photos by Simon Peter King)
Matt Terry
Luis Prendi
In addition to the online programme, we also offer CPD sessions for teachers, workshops for students and school visits. Please contact us via education@excathedra.co.uk to find out more
Zoha Sohail, Gabriella Liandu, Rob Challinor
‘You Are Everything’ led by Rebecca Ledgard at Kings High School, Warwick (Photo by KHS)
The Team
The ChoirMaker Year 7 programme team is made up of teachers, conductors, vocal tutors, singers, composers, pianists, percussionist, guitarist, kora player, students and school pupils.
Digital Resource Producer and Teacher Advisor: Sarah Batten
Choral Advisor and Teacher Advisor: Dan Ludford-Thomas
Project Manager and Teacher Advisor: Gemma King
Videography: Simon Peter King
Performers and presenters: Maia Ayling (singer), Marianne Ayling (composer and singer), Sarah Budd (composer, singer, conductor), Rob Challinor (piano, arranger, composer and notation) Ruairi Edwards (composer), Ex Cathedra Academy of Vocal Music Upper Voices (singing), Claire Hollocks (singer), Gemma King (singer, vocal tutor), Simon Peter King (guitars), Kadialy Kouyate (kora, singer), Annabel Ledgard (singer), Rebecca Ledgard, (vocal tutor, singer), Gabriella Liandu (singer), Dan Ludford-Thomas (composer, arranger, conductor, singer, vocal tutor), Luis Prendi (singer), Helena Raeburn (singer), Simone Rebello (percussion), Zoha Sohail (singer), Sally Spencer (singer), Pippa Wright (singer), Suzzie Vango (singer, composer, conductor)
Recorded at Vada Recording Studios by Matt Terry
With thanks to Ex Cathedra Choir and Jeffrey Skidmore OBE for the performance videos.