David Haines

Currently songwriter-in-residence with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Millennium Seed Bank, David Haines is a science-mad composer based in Devon. Much of his work is community-based, forging creative relationships with schools, colleges, pre-schools, youth and community groups, theatres and science institutions, writing new and often educational materials either alone or as part of his Workshops and Residencies programme.

“What a wonderful thing you are doing, and the songs are very catchy! I wish more people saw science as inspirational!” Amanda Gefter, New Scientist magazine

“One of the most intense and magical pieces of public engagement with science that I have ever encountered.” John Durant, world's first Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, currently Director of the MIT Museum

“It was, for me, the most moving school event I have ever been involved with in over 25 years of teaching.” David Gibbard, Headteacher of Dunsford Primary School, Devon (after a performance of Lifetime - songs of the science of life and evolution)

David can offer visits to schools lasting anything from a morning upwards. He works with all ages from pre-school through primary and secondary up to college level and beyond, teaching and explaining his science songs or helping students write their own from scratch. David's songwriting sessions induce a "creative fervour" in the group, a state of shared inspiration which produces brilliant lyrics and catchy melodies.

His songs are “educational” in that they help pupils learn facts and figures but also celebrate science; communicate enthusiasm for the endless vistas of knowledge and discovery that science opens up; bring out the humour in science, the weirdness of it, the mystery of it, the wonder, beauty, excitement, and awesomeness. David offers many support materials and resources for a gradually-expanding selection of songs on his publishing website www.singtastic.com.

David has worked with thousands of schoolchildren and students as visiting composer or composer-in-residence throughout the UK and the USA, having delivered over 150 workshops in Massachusetts, Missouri, Texas, California and the Washington DC area - where his work Powers of Ten opened the national USA Science and Engineering Festival on 10.10.10.

UK residencies include: 18 months at Gatehouse Primary School, Dawlish, where he worked with all 300 pupils to develop singing skills, performance skills, song-learning (from Tudor madrigals to pop songs) and songwriting (including publishing a songbook). He also mounted productions of his own children's musicals and concerts of songs the children themselves had written. Ivybridge Community College where he wrote, rehearsed and produced a full-length musical, The Terrorthon (about a hostage crisis) in a single term; a production described by Deputy Head Alan Howson as "the best school/college production that I have ever attended." Creative Partnerships funded a CARA2 project which saw David spend a year in residence at three rural Devon schools, researching the impact upon children's attitudes to learning of acquiring songwriting skills through workshop processes.

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