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Steve

Drones People

Steve Grocott | Jon Petter
Tanera Dawkins | Giles Leaman


this was steve 3

Steve Grocott - vocals, bouzouki, slide-guitar, harmonium, flower pots, mandolin.

The initiator of it all, a succinct song-writer, prolific composer and cohort of Rory McLeod, The Wise Monkeys and The Pyrotechnicos. The other string to Steve's banjo is a link to all things educational. He has recorded several albums of material for children and teachers. He runs a xylophone band at the primary school where he teaches and is often to be found jamming in the playground of his local nursery school.

If you would like to know more about the childrens' recordings - teacher training sessions or xylophone compositions or if you have information to share, see Steve Grocott's Pages or e-mail him at steve@dronesmusic.net

Jon Petter – clarinet, sax, vocals, percussions.

An eclectic clutch of bands keeps Jon busy on the performing front. He currently plays with worldbeat jazzers ZubopGambia, The Klezmer Klub, acoustic popticians The Tinpots and roots reggae collective The Love Grocer. In the past he has toured with Michelle Shocked and The Royal Ballet.

A one-time dance student, he continues working with dancers and opera companies (Mita Bannerjee, Jayachandran, Imlata, Richard Alston Company, Irina Lorez, Royal Ballet, ENO, ROH, Opera North) as educationalist and performer. He has a very strong working relationship with Pan Intercultural Arts, an organisation using the arts towards social change and deeper cultural understanding. More recently his computer has been taking the strain, producing scores for several full scale dance works.

He has a long-standing relationship with Queens Park Community School where he teaches all sorts of instruments and runs 2 busily gigging jazz bands. He also regularly travels to Bangalore, India to work with the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts.

Tanera Dawkins - cello, recorder and duck chorus.

TANERA DAWKINS has toured Malaysia with cello duo The Chainsaw Sisters, played at Istanbul Festival with contemporary classical group Orbestra and is currently one of THE KITCHEN GIRLS, a six piece American string band. She also has done string arrangements for Lamb, Squeeze and performed on recordings with Roger Eno and the Levellers.

Her compositional work includes a score for The Cullberg Ballet, Stockholm, and the Bafta nominated animation 'The Dog Who was a Cat Inside', directed by Siri Melchior. They have just completed their second project 'Whistleless', a children's animation for TV produced in Denmark. (Listen out for Jon as a policeman, a tiger and a giant in-breath on his sax and clarinet.)
She has also written scores for TV documentaries including 'Machines Time Forgot' (Channel 4/Discovery) and '03 and Me', a Channel 4 series highlighting 2003's year of disability.
Current projects include www.collidingparticles.com - a series of documentaries about the work of British physicists working at CERN.

She lives with her husband Mark Fleming who sings with CANTABILE and their son Tom.

Giles Leaman - percussion, didjeridoo, toys and oboe.

You would be hard-pushed to classify Giles, as he can turn his hand to all stages of the design and build of instruments, sonic environments, large-scale sculptures, indoor DIY, works of art, collages and self-published books.

Many of the instruments Giles plays in The Drones are self made, delighting the eye as well as the ear. He has played with The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Rip Rig and Panic and worked extensively with Echo City designing and building instruments into outdoor sonic play-spaces.

The artwork for 'Sounds From The Beehive' is his design - with help from his daughter Lucia.

Now he runs a thriving scrap project in North London, and composes and plays music for puppeteer Steve Tiplady and other puppet groups.