About our Hon. President

Gillian Earl (Honorary President) studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She spent fifteen years in Winchester in charge of singing at St Swithun’s School and was the organist at the Cathedral. She now teaches piano in Cornwall. She has attended three International Seminars in Kecskemét and holds the Diploma of the BKA (Adv) and their CKME. She has tutored for the BKA, given lectures in many parts of the UK and also at the EPTA International Conference in Budapest, 2000 and the OAKE National Conference, San Francisco, 2004. She is the author of With Music in Mind, a founder member of the BKA, former Chairman and its current Hon. President.

About our Trustees

After reading music at Durham University, Margaret taught music in secondary schools. Subsequently, having retrained and qualified as a Montessori teacher, she worked for 23 years across the curriculum in a Montessori school (nursery & infants) with special responsibility for music there, as well as giving private music lessons. Though retired from teaching, she continues to pursue her love of singing.

A BKA member since 1994, Margaret has served as a Trustee and on the Communications Committee. She chaired the Communications Committee and subsequently the Board of Trustees. She continues to look after the sale of books and is currently coordinating the Operations Team.

 John Oliver (Treasurer)
John writes: Until the 2011 AGM my connection with the BKA was through Margaret to whom for several years I have given behind-the-scenes assistance, particularly on the administrative and financial aspects of the Bookstore operation.
Now, having been elected Treasurer, I am much more directly involved, putting to more intensive use my experience of administration gained in a long career with a large industrial company. My “retirement” was already a very busy one with family activities involving much time and travelling – these of course will continue as also I hope, will opportunities to experience and learn more about music, and especially to keep up the choral singing which has been a major enthusiasm of mine for as long as I can remember. It is particularly from that angle, and from having shared with Margaret the priority given in her professional life to music and music teaching, that I am now looking forward to making my own contribution as a BKA Trustee.

Sally Edwards (Membership)
Sally writes: I was born in the Far East and grew up in Lincolnshire and Suffolk where my brothers and I were founder members of one of the very first County Youth Orchestras in the country.
Music was always in my background, my mother a very talented amateur musician, and I turned to music as a career while studying on a post A level music course – tutor: that young unknown lecturer, Christopher Hogwood. I studied at RCM doing flute as first study and then at London University under Keith Swanwick for a Music Teachers Certificate.
I have taught at the same independent school in Hertfordshire all my career holding a succession of different posts so that I could continue teaching while my children were small.
Once my son had decided that he wanted to be a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral, I took a full time post in the Junior Department with a class of 15 seven year olds. Then followed several years of great fun with lovely colleagues before the National Curriculum took hold.
Singing has always been my favourite form of music making and my main memories of RCM are Choral Class with Vernon Handley and Bach with Denys Darlow. Subsequently I have preferred to sing in chamber groups and now after a week of sessions with Jeannette in summer of 2012, I am now taking lessons with Eleanor Meynell.
I run three choirs at school at the moment and we been regular Music for Youth participants including three invitations to the National Festival, firstly at the QEH and more recently at Birmingham Symphony Hall. As a school we have given concerts at St John’s Smith Square and the Barbican Hall.
I did not discover the BKA until about 8 years ago when I attended my first Summer School in Leicester. At about the same time I discovered Lucinda Georghan and her ‘Singing Games and Rhymes for Early Years’ at a Singposium on the South Bank. What a revelation! Lucinda, my saviour! All my questions answered! It was now possible to enjoy a lesson with Reception and not finish up in a heap on the floor!
Over the last 3 years I have been a regular attender at courses and now wild horses couldn’t drag me away.

David Greenhalgh
During a wide-ranging career, David was a professionally qualified and experienced Manager and Engineer with extensive knowledge of managing high value assets in a national company. He worked in operational, customer interface and change management roles and as a specialist in the implementation and ongoing management of Construction and Design management legislation and ISO Management Systems. He has a master’s degree in management from Manchester Metropolitan University.
Running parallel to his career, he has successfully managed several non-professional arts organisations and is a performer in music ensembles throughout the North West. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Music London.
He has worked for Making Music, is a Trustee for Trust Music in Bolton and the Light Music Society, a Director of Note Weavers CIC educational consultancy, a volunteer for the Fix the Fells scheme run by the Lake District National Park and enjoys cycling and walking.
He has extensive experience working with Charitable organisations both at a Board level and in operational roles and understands the challenges of working with voluntary organisations, and the need for appropriate governance to ensure that the objectives of organisations are identified, understood, and delivered.
He is proud to be a Trustee and looks forward to helping the BKA achieve even greater success.

Naveed Idrees
Naveed is a headteacher and passionate advocate for music and arts in education. He has supported many of his teachers to train in the Kodály approach and has based the school’s entire curriculum on the principles and philosophy of Kodály. His interest in becoming a Trustee stems from a shared vision with BKA about the importance of music as a bedrock of a rich and fulfilling life.
As a Trustee he brings his expertise in the areas of:
● Educational and System leadership – he is currently a system leader for a large Multi Academy Trust
● Coaching and Mentoring of senior leadership teams – EMCC qualification (Applied coaching Skills for Leaders)
● Financial and organisational management skills
● Educational Networking across the music and arts sector
● Legal background
● Educational Reputation: TES Headteacher of the year; OBE for services to education;
Taking a school from special measures to outstanding
● Changing perception and extending the reach of BKA in the wider educational sector
● Panel member for the DfE model music curriculum
He is honoured to be part of the next phase of BKA’s amazing musical journey, and help take the joy and magic of Kodály to thirsty souls across the wider educational landscape.

Alan Murdock
Alan writes: I was born in N Ireland and my early musical training was in the local brass band. After music studies at Queen’s University Belfast, I taught in Belfast before moving to South London in 1988 where I concentrated on choral work in the John Fisher Comprehensive School.
I revived my interest in Kodály education, which I first encountered at London University, Institute of Education, with Cecilia Vajda, eventually completing an advanced course with Cecilia and attending Summer seminars regularly in Hungary and England. The Chapel Choir of boys in my school is one of the best known school choirs in the UK, getting into the finals many times of National competitions. The Boys’ Choir section reached the semi finals of the BBC’s Choir of the Year competition in 2000; achieved the “outstanding performance” award in the National Festival of Music for Youth in 2002; a “highly commended performance” award in 2004; finalist of the BBC Songs of Praise Choir of the Year 2006 and final six of the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year 2008. This year the boys and mixed voice choirs were both South of England Area section winners of the BBC Choir of the Year. The school’s choral society has performed many of the major choral works like the Fauré Requiem, Mozart Requiem, Handel Messiah, Verdi Requiem, Britten War Requiem, Haydn Creation and Walton Belshazzar’s Feast and Louis Vierne’s setting of the Mass. I have just retired from class teaching to enable me to further teach Kodály methodology in more schools and in the community.

Nicky Woods
Nicky writes: How do I recollect my early musical experiences? My grandfather loved music and had a large collection of 78 records played on a scratchy old phonogram, and church and school both provided lots of opportunities to sing; in school mainly from ‘Time and Tune’, a BBC Schools Radio broadcast. I started learning to play the piano and later the cello; I continued to sing and aspired to a career in music; but there I hit a stumbling-block. I had to write Renaissance-style polyphony – but what was a mode? I had to notate melodies, harmonies and note-clusters but ended up surrounded by the pathetic remains of my eraser whilst the person next to me was writing in pen because they could ‘just do it’!
My first BKA Summer School was in 1996 and I was in Sarolta Platthy’s group. The ‘light bulb moments’ could have illuminated the room. Not only that, the structure of the lesson, with its own beauty and logic, allowed us all to succeed. At last I realised that it wasn’t a question of some innate ability that I lacked, but that I could learn the language of music too. And what about my own teaching? It had to change! I wanted to learn more about Kodály’s Philosophy of Music Education; I wanted to improve my own skills and to be able to teach others in the same way. Since that first Summer School I have learned so much from many wonderful Hungarian and British teachers, both in the UK and in Hungary and have come to work as a BKA tutor. I also work as an Advisory Teacher and Course Leader for The Voices Foundation and serve on the Yorkshire Regional Committee for ABCD. Once started, it’s an ongoing and lifelong process!