Bushfire Press Arts and Education Publishers

Some of OUR Team

KEVIN O'MARA - GENERAL MANAGER

Kevin O'Mara is the General Manager of Bushfire Press. He overseas all operations and projects, controls production, engineers recording sessions, handles the musicset and all the technical stuff, designs layout and liases with printers - and takes his tea black with one sugar. He also finds time to write and edit for the company.

Kevin was born in Melbourne, growing up in the working class suburb of Fawkner and is a passionate Carlton supporter - but don't hold that against him. He lives in the picturesque village of Warrandyte, by the Yarra River, east of Melbourne, with his wife, sons, and several thousand bellbirds. When not being a General Manager, Kevin umpires Aussie Rules football on the weekends in winter and leads the Warrandyte Primary School Bush Band.

Kevin has been a classroom teacher, music teacher and Music Advisor, as well as a professional musician, writer and performer. He holds a Dip Prim Tch and a Grad Dip Mus.

Kevin's involvement in music began with a scholarship to St Patrick's Cathedral Choir, Melbourne and he was a chorister with the choir from ages of 9 to 25. He was a founder member, in 1978, of Paradiddle Band, an Australian-Irish group that specialises in bush dances and primary school programs and is still performing.

In the late eighties, Kevin began writing school musicals with Lynne Bartlett, Mark Leehy and Rob Fairbairn. By the end of the decade, he, Lynne and Mark began Bushfire Press and those early shows were first titles published by the company.

WRITING CREDITS

Music Course

Music Room (books 1-7)

Arts course

Cool Cats Cross Arts Adventures (levels 1-4)

Singing

Start Singing (with the Cool cats Kids)

Start Singing Aussie Kids Songs

Advance Australia Fair (adapted for younger singers)

Guitar tutor

Upbeat Guitar 2

Dance collections

Cool Cats Big Bush Dance with Paradidle Band

Cool Cats Big Dance Party with Paradidle Dance Band

Start Singing Action Songs with Paradiddle Band

Start Singing and Dancing with Paradiddle Band

Mini-musicals

What We Did on Our Holidays

Our Cake Eating Hippo Plays (musical adaptation of the Hazel Edwards stories)

Junior Musicals

A Christmas Pageant

HMS Pinafore (adapted for younger performers)

The Mikado (adapted for younger performers)

The Pirates of Penzance (adapted for younger performers)

Kids in Camelot

The Little Mermaid

Masquerade!

A Kidsummer Night's Dream

Danger Kids

Kids at Sea

Once Upon a Time

Kids in Paradise

Dragon Girl

Currawong Creek

Kids in Space

Superkids

Senior Musical

Open Season

Music picture book

Moondrops - a First Book of Lullabies

Miscellaneous

Cool Cats Graduation Kit

MARK LEEHY - PUBLISHER, BUSHFIRE PRESS

Being the publisher for the company, Mark gets to hang out with writers, artists and musos (his favourite pastime). He is always on the lookout for people with interesting and exciting ideas in music education and will either generate the project or find it in the submissions that arrive on his desk. It's Mark's job to put together the team and guide the project home. Sometimes his role is editorial and sometimes it's hands-on researching, writing, composing and recording - and, these days, filming.

Mark is a Marrickville boy whose family never stood still. He grew up in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin - giving him an early taste of state similarities and differences in education. These days he has a home, office and studio in Upwey, in Victoria's beautiful Dandenong Ranges, where he lives with his wife, cat, free-range chooks - and several tree frogs, geckoes and bearded dragons (it's a Darwin thing).

Mark has been a classroom teacher, music teacher and Music Advisor, as well as a professional musician, writer and performer. He holds a Dip Prim Tch and a Grad Dip Mus as well as a Grad Dip in Editing and Publishing..

Mark was a founder member of Paraddiddle Band, an Australian-Irish group that has been doing bush dances and primary school programs since 1978 and still won't go away.

In the late eighties, he began writing school musicals with Lynne Bartlett, Rob Fairbairn and Kevin O'Mara. By the end of the decade, he, Lynne and Kev began Bushfire Press and those early shows were the first titles published by the company.

WRITING CREDITS

Music Course