Meet the Music Network staff team.
Tom Chevis
Music Network Co-ordinator
Tom's parents met in the London Symphony Chorus, and Tom's Grandma conducted a male-voice choir that his Grandad was in. Unsurprisingly, choral music played a significant part of Tom's upbringing, the highlight of which was being a member of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain for 11 years, between 2003-2013. He also began composing from a young age, winning the Sibelius Student Composer of the Year award in 2008 for his piece Enclos'd in Cinders, a choral setting of part of Shakespeare's poem The Phoenix and the Turtle.
Tom studied Music at Magdalen College, Oxford, and it was while a member of Oxford Uni's CU - the OICCU - that he was challenged and encouraged by UCCF to begin thinking Christianly about music, rather than keeping his faith and music separate. He explored this further in Cambridge as a UCCF Relay Worker and then in London as a CU Staff Worker for the four music colleges, and he now co-ordinates the UCCF Music Network from his narrowboat in Gloucestershire. He continues to compose, and has just begun a choir in the lovely city of Gloucester.
Becky Chevis
Music Network Assistant
Becky Chevis is a freelance musician who plays the flute and runs community-based music projects in schools and care homes.
In her role as UCCF’s Music Network Assistant she supports music students, produces resources that connect faith, musicking and musicology, and co-runs the Music Network's Profondo programme, a learning community of postgraduate and young professional musicians.
Having studied music at Oxford University, she now lives with her husband Tom on a narrowboat that's normally moored in rural Gloucestershire.
Niamh Sanders
London Music College CU Staff Worker
Niamh is a freelance musician who studied viola at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. In her role as a Staff Worker, she will be equipping music students in evangelism on campus as well as helping them to navigate what it looks like to be both a professional musician and a Christian at the same time.
Chris Axford-Amer
Scotland Arts & Music Staff Worker
A (twice) graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Chris is a Glasgow-based guitar player that spends part of his time as a freelance musician and part of his time working with UCCF. Originally from Edinburgh, Chris grew up benefitting from good local authority music initiatives and very supportive parents, before moving to Glasgow in 2012 to study jazz. Since then, Chris has been playing, recording and writing music under his own name and with others, as well as bringing to fruition his unique 5-string theorbed tenor guitar.
Whilst a student at the RCS, Chris benefitted enormously from the small Christian Union, where he was helped to think deeply about what music is, why it’s worth doing, and where it fits in the LORD’s world. Writers like Francis Schaeffer have helped persuade Chris of the beauty, dignity and robust reliability of the Christian worldview, and with that conviction Chris continues to work alongside students at the RCS, the Glasgow School of Art, and across the country as part of the UCCF Networks.
More info here: www.chrisamer.com
Barny Kimberley
North-West Music & Arts Staff Worker
Barnabas (Barny) is a drummer and (untrained) singer based in Manchester with his wife Eleonore, fellow musician and (trained) classical singer. A Royal Northern College of Music graduate, Barny had the pleasure of studying popular music performance within a classical conservatoire, an insightful experience.
Barny’s time is spent teaching drum kit, playing kit professionally, working part time with UCCF, particularly with the RNCM CU, and composing music in a couple of ensembles. Those ensembles are: Diving Station, a four piece band crossing genres of alternative rock, dream pop and indie folk; and the thus-far-unnamed vocal/guitar duo with guitarist and friend Matthew Campbell, exploring themes of meaning, faith, love, and culture.
A deep thinker and an emotional man, Barny has a passion for proclaiming the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that resonate within Western 21st century culture, and has found the preaching of Tim Keller particularly influential. Barny loves engaging in deep conversations, climbing, games, and music that moves like Bon Iver, John Van Deusen, Simon and Garfunkel and Page CXVI.