15 April 2016

Costain’s Steve Ellis recently joined pupils from Canon Peter Hall Church of England Primary School in Immingham, South Humberside, to give a Taiko drum performance to parents and pupils.

Taiko are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments which incorporate drumming patterns, choreographed movements and energetic shouts to create powerful and exciting performances.

“The children were fantastic, we were blown away by their performance,” said Steve, who is the Community Relations Officer on the £88 million A160/A180 Port of Immingham Improvement Scheme for Highways England.

Steve was recently accepted onto the school’s Board of Governors and attended the event with colleagues from Highways England. He first became involved with Taiko when he was invited to watch pupils from the school take part in a Taiko performance at the Grimsby Auditorium.

Sandra Fawn, the Headteacher of the school, asked Steve if he was interested in helping to develop a Taiko Drum Group to help develop and encourage more parents to become involved in the school and its activities.

Now, every Thursday morning, parents and friends of the school meet up for half an hour or so and learn Taiko with Lisa Oliver, an instructor from Humber Taiko.

The school worked extremely hard to raise the funds to purchase 16 Taiko drums, which cost around £3.500, but they also needed 16 Taiko drum stands.

Each stand costs around £30 to buy new and works by holding the drum off the floor to improve the sound quality. Steve stepped up again, building the stands and saving the school the best part of £500.

“I jumped at the chance to help the school. I made some drawings and, using recycled wood from our project, I made 16 Taiko drum stands. Each Taiko drum stand cost me approximately £1.50 to make and I donated them to the school,” said Steve.

For more information about Taiko Drumming in the Humber area, please click on the link below:

Humber Taiko

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