Mark Fleming

. . . / continued

He also decided the stage was a fun place to be, and played a wide variety of policemen & soldiers (well it was a boys' school). He most enjoyed wearing Michael York's pith helmet in Conduct Unbecoming, set during the Raj, and playing the Headmaster in the tremendous farce The Happiest Days of Your Life - with real girls from a local school, thankfully. His delight in Pantomime also started whilst still at school, when he joined the Mitre Players and started messing about every Christmas in home-grown panto - and doing all their other shows he could manage.

He continued his studies in music at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. [Continuing the concrete theme: UEA boasts the longest straight concrete fascia in Western Europe.] He started enjoying bossing people about and conducted many orchestral and choral concerts at the University and the Cathedral. These included Haydn's Nelson Mass (his A-level set work!), Messiah , Brahms' 4, Façade (in 20s dress), Britten's Cantata Academica and the Bax Violin Concerto (with the 1986 Young Musician of the Year, Alan Brind - a Norwich lad - as soloist). He was also a Choral Scholar at Norwich Cathedral.

As a post-graduate at the Royal College of Music in London, he was taught by Neil Mackie, and pretended to be interested in Opera for a few months. He also co-ran an early music group Nuove Musiche , specialising in Monteverdi, and was coached by Nigel Rogers. But finally the incomparable world of the Vocal Group became his home.

As well as arranging and orchestrating many a piece for Cantabile, Mark composes music, mainly for the stage. He has written several pantomime scores, and four settings of music for Shakespeare plays; one of which - A Midsummer Night's Dream - was performed at the newly-reconstructed Globe Theatre on the South Bank of the Thames. These compositional exploits have mainly been with his old friends in The Mitre Players - for more information on them do go to www.mitreplayers.org.uk

Mark is married to 'cellist and composer Tanera Dawkins. Her many achievements include having taught Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) the piano for two years; appearing on Emmerdale [with Token Women] and Blue Peter [with The Drones] playing the 'cello; arranging and playing on albums by Lamb and Squeeze; and having some of her film scores heard on Channel 4, Discovery Channel and at the Cannes Film Festival 2006! She wrote the music to the BAFTA-nominated animation by Siri Melchior 'The Dog who was a Cat Inside'.

To find out more, with audio & video clips, visit www.taneradawkins.com

In a much more amicable way than they feared, Tan and Mark co-wrote the music to The Country Wife for the Mitres and it was performed at Cornwall's splendid Minack Theatre - as well as in a Croydon car park. But their most unbelievable creation together is Tom, who turned up in July 2001; he keeps them very busy playing his trumpet, guitar and drums - it can only get noisier as he gets older it seems. Cats, Oddbod & Sam are now both dearly missed - though we have gained a new space where they used to do their business! In Tan and Mark's possession also are three 'cellos, two pianos, a guitar, a dusty violin, a penny whistle [Tom's] (oh, and a bass accordion!)...and an ud [that's a Turkish lute], and a computer which writes music with Tan's expert help... plus sundry recorders, drums and some rather splendid homemade claves.

P.S. For football fans only: Mark and his family, in the esteemed company of Bernard Ingham, John Kettley and Alastair Campbell, support Burnley Football Club.

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