Our History

Born to Drone was created in the summer of 1993 to spread Jeanne’s passion for Balkan music. The group is fascinated by the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation, lush harmonies, and resonant strength of Eastern European women’s vocal music. We made our ‘debut’ at a folk dance weekend event at a private house in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the fall of 1993.

In addition to these folk dance weekends, we have performed at The Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, as part of their Family Concert Series, at the Exploratorium as part of the weekend celebration of their new exhibit on listening, the San Francisco Kolo Festival, house concerts, senior centers, Stanford International Folk Dancers in Mountain View, the San Francisco Free Folk Festival, the San Francisco Poklada Festival, at local coffee houses, for United Nations Day in Palo Alto, a benefit for the Learning Community, and as part of Mountain View's Community School of Music and Arts In-School Residency program.

In 1994 we began studying Bulgarian singing with Tatiana Sarbinska, former soloist with The Pirin State Folklore Ensemble and Ansambl Trakia (both of these are Bulgarian groups), currently a faculty member of The Boston Conservatory of Music.

We have also worked with Maria Plancich of Seattle on Croatian songs, Kremena Stancheva and Jordanka Ilieva on Bulgarian songs of the Šop region, Maria Bebelekova on Bulgarian songs from the Rhodope region, Dimitur Trifunov on his original compositions based on Bulgarian folk music, Donka Koleva on Bulgarian songs of Thrace, Tatyana Teodorovich on Russian songs, as well as various teachers at the Annual Balkan Camp held in the Mendocino Woodlands.

Most recently we’ve been working with Tzvetanka Varimezova, who’s been a master artist in residence at UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology, where she teaches Balkan singing technique and conducts a women’s choir. She has performed and conducted in numerous Bulgarian ensembles and is well-known for her brilliant tone quality and highly ornamented songs from her native Pazardzhik region.