Claire and Zita set up Teddies Music Club in 1993 to feed their own small children’s passion for singing and dancing. There was nothing else around at the time, so they created something completely new, based on what all the children liked and responded to best. The main emphasis was on live music, with everyone creating the music together. Zita seized her guitar, Claire, her tambourine, and they bought percussion instruments for all the children. They hunted down all the best action songs and dances they could find, to entertain both children and adults alike. 

As they were both artists, Zita and Claire experimented with combining art with music. They discovered that if they painted large pictures, with movable characters, or puppets, it fascinated the children and helped them understand the meaning of the songs much better. This led to the children recognising the animals and a range of other subjects, expanding their vocabulary much more quickly. Many parents heard their child’s first words and songs stimulated by all the visual and musical combinations at Teddies Music Club.

Soon hundreds of other parents wanted to come along and sing with their children too and Teddies Music Club just grew and expanded by word of mouth. Teddies became a huge musical community of like minded people who get an amazing buzz out of singing together and with their children. We had musicians, teachers, parents, grandparents, nannies and childminders all joining us, contributing songs, and helping us to learn and grow together.

After 31 years, Zita and Claire have stepped out of delivering regular term time classes to work on other musical and artistic projects. Term time classes are being handed over to Ziggy’s Music Live, while Claire and Zita as Teddies Music Club will run holiday classes and special events.