Marcus de Mowbray

I studied music at school and privately, then studied Photography and Animation at Medway College of Design (now University College of the Creative Arts).

As a musician I have worked in a variety of different musical environments including Symphony Orchestras, Jazz, Rock, Folk and Theatre Pit Bands, with whom I have played hundreds of concerts and made several records and CDs, and a session for BBC Radio 1. I also write and record my own music, releasing my debut CD last year.

Frustration at some instrument designs led me to invent the Award-Winning Tour Timps, ("kettle drums"). I undertook scientific work on these and conventional timpani at Brunel University's Acoustic Engineering Department and at South London Innovation Centre which led to Tour Timps being featured on BBC TV's "Tomorrow's World", played by Dame Evelyn Glennie. I set up production for these in London and Dallas USA, and so far almost 1,000 have been sold around the world.

I have created a variety of automata and toys, many props, such as recreations of old inventions for BBC TV's "What the Victorians/Tudors and Stuarts Did For Us"; props for Museums, such as the Livesey Museum for Children, Brent Museum, the London Transport Museum, and the Michael Faraday Centennial Exhibition. Some of the props I have designed and built alone, sometimes as part of a team.