Eleanor believes in introducing music to children from birth, developing an awareness of sound that can grow into a lifelong love of music and its expressive possibilities.
She has written and devised many of her own education projects. In 2008 and 2010, with chamber group, The Nimbus Ensemble, she received funding from the R.C. Sherriff Trust and Surrey County Council to bring a music and art project, The Moon Ants Law to Riverhouse Barn and Cardinal Newman School in Walton on Thames.
2014 saw the start of BabyGigs, a C.I.C. based in Leicestershire. BabyGigs has had residencies in schools, presenting concerts and workshops to EYFS and KS1 alongside Under 5s. Writing their own stories and using a mixture of classical music and original compositions they also create musical story shows, performing at events such as the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival, Leicester Festival of Stories and the Leicester Comedy Festival. Since 2020 they have been commissioned for several community projects with Culture Leicestershire, using music, art and puppetry to help vulnerable families re-engage with their local heritage and libraries. In the summer of 2021 they were Artist in Residence in 2 Leicestershire libraries, linking with the Summer Reading Challenge and in 2023 worked on the 'We are Harborough' project at Harborough Museum
Click here to read about some of their work:
https://www.cultureleicestershire.co.uk/projects/musical-bin-dippers/
Eleanor works as a freelance workshop leader for Early Years, most recently with Carbon Theatre on Sensory Sounds in Nature and Made by Many Mum Club projects funded by Arts Council England. As an orchestral pianist she has been part of many projects for the Orchestra of the Swan and Mid Wales Opera working with school children, including SEN pupils.
© 2023 Eleanor Hodgkinson