José Retra is an early childhood music education researcher and practitioner. She has presented on different conferences. Her research interests are movement representation, symbolic representation, temporal representation and the use of objects in early childhood music education.
Chair Foundation Music on the Lap
Chair Early Childhood Music Education (ISME)
Margré van Gestel is the co-founder of Music on the lap (Muziek op Schoot) courses for parent and child and made great contributions to the development of content of Early Childhood Music teacher training. Margré received a degree as a teacher in primary school (1976), a certificate Orff Schulwerke (1978) and gained a higher degree in Music Education from the Conservatory Utrecht (Schoolmuziek, 1993 the Netherlands). She is a certified Physical Remedial Teacher, NLP practitioner (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and NLP Master (International NLP Trainers Association, 2002). She taught music in primary schools for 25 years, runs a music and theater school and many people joined her choirs. Margré has given lectures, courses and teacher training and is chair of the Foundation Muziek op Schoot (since 2008), the Foundation Toddlers and Music (since 1989), secretary of the board of Gehrels Music Education (Dutch National Society for Music Education, since 2002 (INA member since 2006). She was supervisor of the early childhood music teachers in the SKON day care centres. (National Foundation for child care). From 2008 she is a member of the panel of reviewers for MERYC (European Network of Music Educators and Researchers). As a co-author she published books and articles in national and international journals and presented at national and international symposia and conferences.
Manuela Korver is an early childhood music education practitioner and provides administrative support for the group.
Honorary researcher
Susan Young lectures in early childhood and music education at the University of Exeter, UK. She has published and presented widely on the topic of music in early childhood and is author of Music with the Under Fours, and co-author of Music in the Early Years. Her research interests cover many aspects of early childhood music including the role of movement in music, spontaneous musical behaviour, musical play between adults and children, the role of professional musicians in early childhood settings and popular music for young children.