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About the composer

Singing, dancing and drama played a vital part in my childhood, and continue to do so throughout my career. My second great passion is working with children, and I am constantly astounded by their cleverness and amazing qualities. I hope I have been able to pass on to them some of the enthusiasm and encouragement I received from my own parents and teachers. My third interest is the environment, and during the past twenty years I have combined all three of the above to write environmental musicals for young people to perform.

My cross-curricular musicals cover a wide variety of themes, and I try to make them informative, stimulating and entertaining. I begin each new work by immersing myself in researching the subject. Then, during the writing process, I test out the songs and script on my pupils, making adjustments until they give me their seal of approval. Then, with a lot of help and luck, the costumes and scenery are made and we take the plunge and stage the musical. After this ‘trial by fire’, further adjustments are needed before publication.

It is important for children to experience a diversity of musical styles, and they are very capable of appreciating complex lyrics, rhythms and melodies. Music that is too simplistic is often less memorable.  They also have an innate instinct for serious issues as well as an appreciation of humour, and I find it very effective to mix these two elements in my plays. Dance and movement play important parts in the production as well as helping the learning process.

I write for primary and lower secondary schools (Keystages 1 to 4), with large flexible casts of evenly distributed solo and chorus parts. My work has been performed in schools and theatres in the UK and abroad, and featured on television and radio.  Performances vary in duration from about thirty minutes to an hour, according to requirements.

Each musical comes with a range of products, specifically designed for use by music and non music specialist.