Scroll down to read the program, session descriptions, and presenter bios!
Program
| Session | Presenter | |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30am | Registration & CovidSafe Check in | |
| 9:00 – 9:45am | All in | Renée Heron |
| 9:45 – 10:30am | Elective Session 1 – Musicianship | Rowena Tall – Beginner Mark O’Leary – Intermediate Elizabeth O’Leary – Advanced |
| 10:30 – 11:00am | Morning Tea | Please bring a keep cup |
| 11:00 – 12:00pm | Elective Session 2 | Planning for PYP – Lisa Sheppard Orff style percussion in a Kodaly setting – Peta Rust |
| 12:00 – 1:00pm | Elective Session 3 | Keep the Metre Running – Jenny Ferris Prepare, Present, Practise! – Elizabeth O’Leary |
| 1:00 – 2:00pm | Lunch – BYO | |
| 2:00 – 2:30pm | Choral performances | Junior Yarra Voices Young Voices of Melbourne Senior Training Choir |
| 2:30 – 3:30pm | Choral session or Repeat of Session 2 electives* | What to sing with your primary choir? – Renée Heron Games & movement activities for diverse student needs – Ebony Birch-Hanger |
| 3:30pm | Finish |
Session Descriptions
All in
Music, Movement and Mindfulness: Exploring Klara Kokas
Presented by Renée Heron
Session description: Kokas-pedagogy is a unique approach to, and application of, Zoltan Kodály’s philosophy. Many traditional music education practices engage the intellect before the emotions. Kokas reverses this process by using imagination and spontaneous movement to develop intuitive musical understandings and create joyful connections with music. Kodály believed that children need to be actively involved in music-making to absorb and deeply understand it. Kokas takes this one step further with children becoming a living, breathing part of the music with their improvised movement expression – a way to use the child’s sensitivity to interpret their own musical experience.
Musicianship Electives
Beginner Musicianship
Presented by Rowena Tall
Session description: Are you new to Kodály? Do you lack confidence in reading music? Or just need to brush up on a bit of music theory or improve your aural skills? Come and join us in Beginner Musicianship where we will sing and play our way through many of the basic skills needed to decode music successfully and be able to teach music literacy with greater confidence.
Intermediate Musicianship – ‘A Major Achievement’
Presented by Mark O’Leary OAM
Session description: An intermediate musicianship session for those who are comfortable singing the major scale in solfa – there will be scales, intervals, part singing and some aural fun.
Advanced Musicianship
Presented by Elizabeth O’Leary
Session description: If you are comfortable singing in solfa and would like a little challenge, then this session is for you! We will begin with some solfege warm-ups and learn a little bit about the renaissance and how modes were used in this period.
Elective Session 2
Elective 2 Session: Kodály Practice in an IB Setting
Presented by Lisa Sheppard
Session description: Are you interested in making authentic connections to the PYP without sacrificing the integrity of your own discipline? This session will provide you with planning ideas and resources that will help you integrate the elements of the PYP within your Kodály practice. Using concepts to ‘drive’ inquiry can help deepen students’ understanding that can be transferred within and across disciplines.
Elective 2 Session: Orff style percussion in a Kodály setting
Presented by Peta Rust
Music is sound organised through time. In this session, we will explore simple strategies on how instruments can be incorporated into singing games, musicianship exercises and Music making activities to engage students and add dimension to their timbral experience during Music.
Elective Session 3
Elective 3 Session: Keep the Metre Running
Presented by Jenny Ferris
Session description: In this session we will look at creative ways of presenting the concept of metre to primary-aged students including elements such as bars & bar lines, time signatures, conducting and simple vs. compound time. Participants will enjoy a variety of games and activities in various time signatures and will gain strategies for presenting these in their classroom.
Elective 3 Session: Prepare, Present, Practise!
Presented by Elizabeth O’Leary
Session description: This session will provide an overview of the three Ps fundamental to Kodály teaching – prepare, present and practise. Participants will learn how to approach each learning stage, choose the best repertoire for teaching and gain practical ideas to use in a primary Kodály classroom. This session is ideal for those new to Kodály.
Choral Session
Sing it Out Loud: Tips and Tricks for Building a Great Primary Choral Program
Presented by Renée Heron
Session description: Renée will present a range of warmups, rehearsal strategies and singing games for primary choirs to find success and joy in singing after the disruptions of 2020/21.
Elective Session: Games & movement activities for diverse student needs
Presented by Ebony Birch-Hanger
Session description: In search of movement activities to pair with your classroom repertoire? This session will engage you in a variety of fun brain-based movement activities to emphasise beat, rhythm and melody, all while strengthening neurological connections! Each activity involves several steps to ensure that they are inclusive and can be modified or extended to suit the needs of all students.
Note: This session will use all new songs and activities that have not been presented in previous brain-based workshops at other Kodály events.
Presenters
Ebony Birch-Hanger
Ebony Birch-Hanger was first exposed to the tools of Kodaly as a young chorister. After completing her Bachelor of Early Childhood Education and a brief tour of the European Kodaly, Dalcroze and Orff institutes, Ebony made these philosophies/approaches a focus of her education and therapy programs in her own organisation Personalised Approaches. Through further study in Special Education and Neurodevelopmental Therapy, Ebony continued to create innovative ways of combining movement and music (including sequential Kodaly learning) to enhance the development of infants through to seniors, with a variety of complex disabilities, learning difficulties and medical conditions. Ebony has also worked as a choral conductor with Southern Voices, the Music Director of Joyful Strains and Spirit Sounds (adult community choirs) and she holds an Australian Kodaly Certificate (Secondary).
Jenny Ferris
Jenny is a Kodály-inspired primary music teacher based in Melbourne. She studied a Bachelor & Master of Music (Performance Teaching) at the University of Melbourne and spent several years teaching French horn. Having come from an instrumental music background, Jenny then completed her Australian Kodaly Certificate in 2017 and has since presented numerous workshops both in Australia and overseas alongside her primary classroom music role. Jenny currently teaches music at Epping Primary School. Jenny is the owner-operator of online business Kodály Crafts in which she publishes articles, blogs and teaching materials to support other Kodály-inspired teachers around the world. Jenny has a love of holistic music teaching and loves finding ways to experience music through movement, which you will see in her workshop all about metre!
Ruth Friend
Ruth is currently Assistant Head of Music at St Kevin’s College, Toorak. As a methodology course lecturer for Kodály Australia and through her co-development of the highly successful ‘Take Note Music’ series of books and resources she passionately supports music teachers and encourages quality music education in Australia. Ruth holds a B Ed (Music) and Grad Dip in Movement & Dance. Her more than 35 years of teaching experience and expertise encompasses classroom, instrumental, choral and movement programs from Kindergarten to University.
Renée Heron
Renée is currently the Artistic Director of The Yarra Voices and a primary music teacher and choral director at Caulfield Grammar, Malvern Campus. In 2016-17, Renee had the privilege of attending the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Kecskemét, Hungary, where she also studied Kokas-pedagogy under Kata Körtvési. She is a musicianship and methodology course lecturer for Kodály Australia, where she serves as President of the Victorian Branch and acts as a regular adjudicator and workshop presenter. Renee holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Queensland and a Master of Teaching from the University of Melbourne. Renee is a member of Melbourne based chamber choir, Polyphonic Voices and a founding member of Alta Collective.
Elizabeth O’Leary
Elizabeth is a passionate music educator, conductor and choral performer.
She currently teaches Early Childhood and Primary Classroom Music at Ruyton Girls School and co-conducts the Junior and Senior Training Choirs at Young Voices of Melbourne. Elizabeth also teaches theory and musicianship privately and as a part of the Australian Kodály Certificate (AKC) courses.
In 2019, Elizabeth was awarded the Sarolta Kodaly Scholarship to study a Diploma at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. She was awarded the AKC in 2012 and is a graduate of Monash University.
Elizabeth performs regularly as a soprano in many Melbourne-based choirs. She is currently a member of ALTA Collective, Choral Edge and Ensemble Gombert.
Mark O’Leary OAM
Mark is well known in Australia, widely respected for his work with Young Voices of Melbourne, Exaudi and Gondwana Voices. He has made 37 tours with YVM and Exaudi to all states and territories of Australia as well as Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Samoa, New Zealand and Japan, and recorded 13 Cds with these choirs. With Gondwana Voices he has made 5 international tours to Europe, North America, China and Taiwan and conducted the choir on 3 Cd recordings. Mark is a regular guest conductor and presenter at choral festivals and music education conferences around the country. He publishes Australian choral music in the Young Voices of Melbourne Choral Series and is the creator of the Sight Singing School books and website used in more than 45 countries. He has three degrees from the University of Melbourne, is a Churchill Fellow, and an Honorary Life Member of the Kodály Music Education Institute of Australia. In 2018 he was awarded the Medial of the Order of Australia for services to education and choral music.
Peta Rust
Peta Rust is an experienced music teacher, accompanist and choral conductor who has been working in Primary School settings and with children’s choirs for over 10 years. She currently holds a music teaching position at Xavier College, Burke Hall where she is the Early Years Classroom Music Teacher from 3 year old Kinder to Year 4, as well as holding choral conducting, accompanying and Piano teaching responsibilities.
Peta holds a Bachelor of Music Performance in Piano, and has completed qualifications in both Kodály teaching method and Orff Schulwerk. She has a broad instrumental background, and has been involved in a diverse range of ensembles from wind bands and symphony orchestras, to stage bands and Piano trios, and lots in between. Peta believes using classroom percussion instruments in her student’s Music learning is important because it adds engagement, breadth and most of all, a little bit of fun!
Lisa Sheppard
Lisa Sheppard (BMus/Bed) is the ELC – Year 3 Music teacher and Arts coordinator at Trinity Grammar School, Kew. She has extensive background in curriculum design, enjoys finding creative ways to integrate technology in lessons and is an advocate for Early Years education. She has a passion for concept-based inquiry and is a certified Concept-Based curriculum and Instructor, having attended the Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction Institute in Haarlem, Netherlands in 2019. Lisa is a workshop leader for the International Baccalaureate and enjoys collaborating with teachers in all fields of education from around the world.
Rowena Tall
Rowena studied the piano and flute while at school. Initially training as a general primary classroom teacher, she was then offered a place in a pilot program with the NSW Department of Education to retrain as a secondary music teacher.
During her first teaching appointment in a high school she began voice lessons to improve her singing and choral conducting skills, obtaining her AmusA in 1997.
Rowena successfully completed Level 8 musicianship as part of her final year in the AKC certificate program in 2011 and has worked as a primary music specialist in Sydney, regional NSW and Melbourne
The Yarra Voices
(Junior Yarra Voices)
The Yarra Voices is an exciting new Melbourne children’s choir based in North Fitzroy, which was created to provide quality music education and choral experiences for children from all backgrounds. Under our artistic director Renee Heron, the vision of The Yarra Voices is to foster excellence in performance while also receiving an outstanding music education that is child focused as well as joyous. The Yarra Voices is a small and friendly organisation which is designed to forge community-based friendships, meaning each child receives the individual attention required to help them reach their full potential both, musically and personally. Each of our three choirs perform regularly at community events all across Melbourne such as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Yarra City Carols in the Park, book launches at Bargoonga Nganjin (North Fitzroy Library) and have recorded for The Avalanches latest album ‘We Will Always Love You’ and ‘The Cabin’, a horror show written by kids for adults at Northcote Town Hall.
Photo by Artificial Studios – Photography, Film and VFX
Young Voices of Melbourne
(Senior Training Choir)
Young Voices of Melbourne was founded by Mark O’Leary OAM in 1990, and is now regarded as one of Australia’s finest choral programs for young singers. Its choirs are admired for their passionate performances, engaging repertoire and outstanding Kodály based music education program (Sight Singing School) which is now used in over 45 countries. Singers in our organization aged 6 to 30 years rehearse weekly in one of six choirs.
As well as Young Voices of Melbourne children’s choir, we operate three training choirs for primary age singers, YVMen for school age boys with changed and changing voices and Exaudi, an ensemble for young adult singers. Young Voices of Melbourne performs regularly in and around Melbourne, and has released 13 CD recordings. The choir has performed for major events such as the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006, as well as at popular events such as the National Folk Festival in Canberra, and Festival of Voices in Hobart.
The choir has a proud history of touring, having undertaken 38 tours to all states and territories of Australia as well as to Europe, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Ireland, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Samoa, New Zealand and Japan.
