Meet our Conducting Team & Choir Manager
Richard Jeffries - Artistic Director & Conducts Junior, Senior and Dynamic Voices
Richard Jeffries has had a lifelong interest in music and began learning the trumpet at the age of ten. This interest grew as he moved through secondary school, playing in bands and orchestras, performing at the Symphony Hall, Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall on several occasions. He achieved Grade 8 trumpet before leaving school. After studying music at Wolverhampton University, Richard qualified as a primary school teacher with music as a specialism in 1997, and then taught at Four Oaks Primary School until 2011. He founded SC Choirs in 2005 by starting a children's choir for pupils from various schools.
Richard became a freelance music educator and choral specialist in 2011, and by 2017 Richard was leading a developing a progressive choral programme that boasts five regular choirs at SCC. |
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He is passionate about music and has taken on numerous musical projects over the years. This has included directing various concerts involving massed choirs, the B Natural choir, numerous community choirs, orchestras and shows - as well as leading school workshops, workshops for singers, choir leaders and training for teachers.
In 2019 Richard was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, which enabled him to travel to Finland, America and Canada for two months, researching the positive impacts a high quality music education and singing has on young people. He was able to study the Finnish education system and its approach to music, as well as top quality American and Candian children/youth choirs. Richard is beginning to implement this research into all areas of his work. You can download his full report and view his films from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust website here.
He is a member of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD) and passed their Intermediate Conductors course in March 200. Richard now leads workshops for them, as well as leading and rehearsing other choral projects across Staffordshire and Derbyshire. Richard completed the 5-day vocal training course with the Voices Foundation in 2012, which centres on Kodaly teaching methods. He looks forward to further developing his choral work in the future!
He is a member of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD) and passed their Intermediate Conductors course in March 200. Richard now leads workshops for them, as well as leading and rehearsing other choral projects across Staffordshire and Derbyshire. Richard completed the 5-day vocal training course with the Voices Foundation in 2012, which centres on Kodaly teaching methods. He looks forward to further developing his choral work in the future!
Sara Kimber -Conductor: Little, Intermediate & Dynamic Voices
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Sara Kimber is an experienced performer, conductor and composer. She studied and achieved her degree in music, with honours, specialising as a French Horn player. She was also a rarity in the fact that she (as a horn player) achieved a place in the college chamber choir. Sara comes from a musical family. Both her parents and her siblings are also professional musicians. I suppose it makes sense that she also married a musician! Her dad is a Bass Baritone so singing is in her blood!
As a performer she has performed internationally across Europe and North America including at Banff Centre for Creative Arts Theatre in Canada, the Chicago International Music Festival, The American Cathedral in Paris, and also closer to home in Symphony Hall, Royal Festival Hall and of course Sutton Town Hall! She was lucky enough to study composing with Alan Bullard and has gone on to write pieces particularly for vocal ensembles some of which SCC perform. |
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Sara is a qualified teacher and has worked as a Head of Music at a Performing Arts School. Some of her past students have gone on to have very successful musical careers. She has always taught and led vocal and instrumental ensembles and takes great joy in training musicians, experienced or not, to be the best they can be. As a Musical Director she conducts the South Derbyshire Youth Choir, Overseal Community Choir, Derbyshire Christmas Sing Out projects not to mention her two primary school choirs and a primary boys’ choir. She is an advocate for the value of outstanding music teaching and vocal training and how much music can impact on the brain and personal wellbeing. She continues to teach music in schools and has been observed to be an outstanding teacher having experience of teaching children aged 3 to 18.
Also Sara is, and has been, Musical Director for a large number of musicals including Gypsy, Singing in the Rain, Anything Goes, Cabaret and West Side Story. She has recently finished a fantastic run of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at The Brewhouse Arts Centre in Burton-on-Trent and is looking forward being MD for future shows. She also regularly works as a musical pit player. She still performs as a horn player with Glebe Symphonic Winds and also works as a solo singer.
Sara is also an accomplished pianist having been taught by Kate Marriott, Lesley Young and John Lill. She works as an accompanist for South Derbyshire Music Centre both within their choirs and for ABRSM and Trinity exams. She feels very lucky to be able to work as a freelance musician and education specialist and is very excited to be working as part of the SCC team, focusing on Little Voices and Intermediate Voices.
Also Sara is, and has been, Musical Director for a large number of musicals including Gypsy, Singing in the Rain, Anything Goes, Cabaret and West Side Story. She has recently finished a fantastic run of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at The Brewhouse Arts Centre in Burton-on-Trent and is looking forward being MD for future shows. She also regularly works as a musical pit player. She still performs as a horn player with Glebe Symphonic Winds and also works as a solo singer.
Sara is also an accomplished pianist having been taught by Kate Marriott, Lesley Young and John Lill. She works as an accompanist for South Derbyshire Music Centre both within their choirs and for ABRSM and Trinity exams. She feels very lucky to be able to work as a freelance musician and education specialist and is very excited to be working as part of the SCC team, focusing on Little Voices and Intermediate Voices.
Laura Collins - SCC Outreach School programme
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Laura is part of our outreach music programme and joined SCC in February 2020 and is Kodaly trained. She has been lucky to receive a top rate musical education and is passionate about passing on these skills. Growing up, Laura won a ‘cello scholarship to Howells’ School, Cardiff, where she was immersed in Classical music, achieving grade 8 in ‘cello and piano. She went on to read Modern Languages at Cambridge University. There she was awarded a choral exhibition from her college, Queens’, where she sang with the chapel choir three times a week. At University she also fulfilled her dream of wearing silly frocks and performing with the Cambridge Footlights.
At University, Laura had caught the jazz bug, consolidating this passion with a Masters in jazz singing at the Guildhall School of Music. Thus followed a raft of gigs as a jazz singer and ‘sideman’ at venues and festivals in the UK. She has appeared as guest on a number of albums in the jazz/pop idiom and in 2010 released the album 'Baltimore Oriole’ on Spotlite Records, which issues Charlie Parker's Dial Recordings. The album achieved critical success and launched in Chelsea’s prestigious 606 Club, featuring Jazz Messengers’ Jean Toussaint. |
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Since moving to Birmingham and raising a family, Laura has got stuck into the West Mids music scene! She’s worked both singing and playing piano for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is the vocalist for 'Birmingham's hottest [big] swing band', the Jim Wynn Swing Orchestra, with whom she has sung at both the Symphony Hall and Town Hall.
Laura loves teaching and knows how to improve voices. She is a trained teacher, having taught at the Birmingham Ormiston Academy from its inception, specialising in voice. She gives private singing lessons from her vocal studio. Her unusual background in both classical and jazz styles enables her to help singers with a variety of creative singing approaches. Laura loves working with singers of different ages, from children to the elderly. She has a fascination for understanding how the voice works and as such is a student of evolving singing techniques, constantly researching methodologies and attending courses. She has studied a variety of techniques including the Estill method. She is a member of the Association of Teachers of Singing, the British Voice Association and the Incorporated Society of Musicians.
Laura has worked as a professional choir director for amateur choirs, singing groups and Performing Arts Colleges schools since she graduated. She especially loves vocal improvisation in ensembles and emphasis on groove and rhythm. Laura has always been fascinated by the link between singing in a group and well-being. In 2019 she kickstarted a local community choir with the aim of creating high musical standards while focusing on enhancing well-being. She has led singing groups and team-building projects for charities and public and private companies. Laura’s notable clients include Standard and Poor's, Essex County Council and University Hospitals Birmingham.
Laura is thrilled to be part of the SC team and can’t wait to get you grooving!
Laura loves teaching and knows how to improve voices. She is a trained teacher, having taught at the Birmingham Ormiston Academy from its inception, specialising in voice. She gives private singing lessons from her vocal studio. Her unusual background in both classical and jazz styles enables her to help singers with a variety of creative singing approaches. Laura loves working with singers of different ages, from children to the elderly. She has a fascination for understanding how the voice works and as such is a student of evolving singing techniques, constantly researching methodologies and attending courses. She has studied a variety of techniques including the Estill method. She is a member of the Association of Teachers of Singing, the British Voice Association and the Incorporated Society of Musicians.
Laura has worked as a professional choir director for amateur choirs, singing groups and Performing Arts Colleges schools since she graduated. She especially loves vocal improvisation in ensembles and emphasis on groove and rhythm. Laura has always been fascinated by the link between singing in a group and well-being. In 2019 she kickstarted a local community choir with the aim of creating high musical standards while focusing on enhancing well-being. She has led singing groups and team-building projects for charities and public and private companies. Laura’s notable clients include Standard and Poor's, Essex County Council and University Hospitals Birmingham.
Laura is thrilled to be part of the SC team and can’t wait to get you grooving!
Emma Cockbill - SCC Outreach & Spotlight Choirs
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Emma joined the SCC team in February 2020 as part of our outreach programme, which includes conducting our Spotlight Choirs - choirs set up in schools to ultimately feed into the SCC umbrella.
Emma is a freelance musician, educator and workshop leader. She is passionate about the importance of music education, especially singing, and wants to improve access to quality music education for all children. Emma works as a pianist and workshop leader with Music of Life Foundation, who bring music education to young people with disabilities. As well as this work, and as a conductor for SCC, Emma also teaches at Edgbaston High School and privately, and works as a repetiteur for a number of organisations. She is an accomplished pianist and is a busy chamber musician, playing concerts and raising money for charity. Emma studied music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge where she was also a Senior Choral Exhibitioner. She specialised in performance, music psychology and music education and these have remained her key interests to this day. Emma is a trained counsellor and is currently training as a Certified Song Therapist, a discipline which combines Music Therapy skills with community music making. |
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She is very keen to expand her work with singing for mental health and wellbeing for a wider range of the community in the future. Emma is also a single mum to 3 children and a very energetic Border Collie!
Choir Manager & Early Years specialist
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Kristal is first and foremost a musician. She plays the violin, viola, piano and soprano saxophone. Her first instrument is the violin, which she began learning at the age of 4, and reached grade 8 distinction by the time she was 15. She also gained grade 8s in piano and saxophone before she was 16.
Despite being a well trained musician, Kristal left school and went on to work in a firm of solicitors where she was trained in Solicitor's accounts and it wasn't long before she was running their finance office. This is where she gained her management and organisational skills that she brings to SC Choirs in her role as Choir Manager. |
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Kristal always regretted not continuing with her music and so enrolled on the Suzuki violin teacher training course and started taking on pupils in her spare time. In 2013 she left her office job and started teaching the violin for Birmingham and Warwickshire music services and set up her own private studio.
She is now trained to level 4 of the Suzuki teacher training programme, has a successful violin studio and is a tutor for the Birmingham Schools String Sinfonia and the Warwickshire Music Suzuki Group. She has also taught on and organised Suzuki workshops across the UK - including the Midlands Suzuki International Summer Workshop.
In 2018 Kristal completed her Suzuki Early Childhood Education (SECE) training and set up her own 0-3s music class with a colleague in Sutton Coldfield which has been running successfully ever since. Kristal also enjoys performing and has had the privilege of playing in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room and Symphony Hall. She is also a member of the Royal Sutton Coldfield Orchestra, and has in the past performed in the band at SCC's Summer Showcase concerts and featured as a musician on their CD recordings!
In January 2020, Kristal joined the Singing Community of Choirs as their choir manager and more recently has put together some singing videos for nursery and preschool children as part of SCC's school support programme. Kristal is really passionate about the power of music education and how it can transform the lives of children. She believes that EVERY child should have the opportunity to do music and she is keen to help SCC provide high quality music provision in our community and to bring the joy of music into as many lives as possible!
She is now trained to level 4 of the Suzuki teacher training programme, has a successful violin studio and is a tutor for the Birmingham Schools String Sinfonia and the Warwickshire Music Suzuki Group. She has also taught on and organised Suzuki workshops across the UK - including the Midlands Suzuki International Summer Workshop.
In 2018 Kristal completed her Suzuki Early Childhood Education (SECE) training and set up her own 0-3s music class with a colleague in Sutton Coldfield which has been running successfully ever since. Kristal also enjoys performing and has had the privilege of playing in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room and Symphony Hall. She is also a member of the Royal Sutton Coldfield Orchestra, and has in the past performed in the band at SCC's Summer Showcase concerts and featured as a musician on their CD recordings!
In January 2020, Kristal joined the Singing Community of Choirs as their choir manager and more recently has put together some singing videos for nursery and preschool children as part of SCC's school support programme. Kristal is really passionate about the power of music education and how it can transform the lives of children. She believes that EVERY child should have the opportunity to do music and she is keen to help SCC provide high quality music provision in our community and to bring the joy of music into as many lives as possible!