New Head of Music Service appointed

A NEW Head of the Music Service has been appointed by the Department of Education.

Maggie Richardson will assume the role in September, following the retirement at the end of the summer term of Graham Kirkland, who has been Head of the Music Service since 2002.

Maggie is currently the Head of Expressive and Performing Arts at Castle Rushen High School, where she conducts three choirs including Happy Harmony (Covingys Maynrey). She is working with secondary schools as Key Stage 3 adviser. She has conducted the Manx Youth Choir for two years.

Maggie was a peripatetic woodwind teacher in the UK before changing direction to become Head of Music at Rudheath Community High School, Cheshire, a specialist performing arts college. She held that post for seven years.

Maggie was the founder/musical director of the South Cheshire Youth Choir and she conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir. She was the chairman of the national choral charity Sing for Pleasure for seven years and is one of SfP’s senior choral conducting tutors. She has performed with choirs since childhood and on the Island she sings with the Tallis Consort, a group specialising in early music.

She said:

‘I am looking forward to my new role, where I hope to build on the relationships I have already begun to forge with primary and secondary schools through the Children in Song project and the Key Stage 3 music strategy.

‘I shall be very sorry to leave Castle Rushen, where I have been so happy. The standard of music making at CRHS and at other schools on the Island is excellent and I am excited about working with the instrumental teachers and various musical groups to ensure the continuation of that excellence.’