Bex Mather
Bex is a singing performing musician, theatre maker and PhD Researcher, with c.25 years experience as a facilitator and teacher including co-leading a BA (Hons) in Community Music, and Directing The North East Youth Music Action Zone Whilst Head of the Youth and Community Programme at Sage Gateshead.
She has worked with a wide range of artists from beyond her own musical traditions including in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, India and Europe. From 2006 through to 2013 Bex established and led Mongrel UK a performance ensemble of young people in partnership with the Northeast Refugee Service. Bands and ensembles Bex has been part of include The Coast Road, Human Music and The Safires. More recently she was comissioned by the Land of Oak and Iron to Direct and co-write a new Community PLay ‘Searching for the Heart of the Land of Oak and Iron’ which included over 80 participant / performers in an interdisciplinary touring work devised in collaboration with Local communities. Bex Co-leads Mouthful Voices Community Choir and has recently enjoyed working as an Evaluator with Skimstone Arts.
Bex is currently engaged in Phd Research at Northumbria University with a focus on Singing and Voice in Community Theatre Making Practice.
Dr Dave Camlin
‘The love-child of James Taylor and Tim Booth.’ (Ed Boyd, Lunasa), Dave Camlin is a Cumbrian-based singer / composer / educator / researcher. As well as Mouthful, he performs solo, and with various bands including The Coast Road, Bitterbeck and Tryckster. He leads various place-based creative and artistic projects in west Cumbria, including Sing Owt!, Wild Chorus and Sing for Fun! community choirs.
He is Lecturer in Music Education at Royal College of Music and Trinity-Laban Conservatoire and is an active researcher in Community Music (CM), music education and group singing, pioneering the use of Sensemaker ‘distributed ethnography’ as an innovative method for exploring the compexity of cultural participation. His forthcoming book Music Making and Civic Imagination makes the case for music making as a resource for global sustainability.
Katherine Zeserson
Katherine is a musician (singer, choir leader, arranger, composer), facilitator and strategic thinker with 35 years experience in community music, music education and arts leadership. She has a particular interest in a cappella music and singing for all; having worked extensively in the UK, Europe and Brazil with vocal leaders and musicians on inclusive practice, creative pedagogy and improvisation.
Currently she holds strategic advisory roles with Music Generation Ireland, European Concert Halls Organisation, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Curious Minds, Royal Opera House, Snape Maltings; and in São Paulo, Brazil with Santa Marcelina Cultura, as well as developing a one to one coaching practice. She is a co-founder and Chair of the Board of Sing Up Ltd., and Chair of Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company. From 2001 to 2015 she was Founding Director of Learning and Participation at Sage Gateshead.
Sharon Durant OBE
Sharon is a freelance singer, composer, arranger, trainer and choir leader. Sharon directs several community choirs and runs training days for singing groups and teachers.
Previous projects include: Youth Chorus Leader for commissioned contemporary opera: Skellig, managing the Sage Gateshead's Community Music Apprenticeship, leading the Vocal Curriculum at Sage Gateshead’s weekend school, Vocal Animateur for the Paul Hamlyn ‘Unlocking the Future’ project across secondary education in Tees Valley inspiring KS3 teachers to enliven singing in the classroom and Musical Director for A Winter’s Tale, a piece of musical theatre by Howard Goodall and Nick Stimson.
She writes and arranges songs for choirs, and her song ‘Chinese Proverb’ was recorded by Sweet Honey in the Rock for their children’s album ‘Experience….101’