PERFORMANCE and EDUCATION
Eastwinds were winners of the 2016 WAM Song of the Year Award (World Music) and performers at two of this country's major folk music festivals, The National Folk Music Festival, Canberra and Fairbridge, WA.
In 2019 Eastwinds began a tenure with Musica Viva in Schools (MVIS) performing nationally in schools as a quartet. In 2020 our singer, Kristiina Malaaps returned to Estonia with her expanding family and subsequently the MVIS Eastwinds became a touring trio and have since 2019 toured in schools in WA, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and NSW.
Photo: https://mareelaffan.com
Recordings: In 2015 Eastwinds released their debut self-titled cd and in 2018 their second cd, Confluence, was released. Their music traverses Persian, Estonian, Balkan and also undeniably Australian sonorities. Eastwinds recordings are available on Bandcamp.
MICHAEL PIGNÉGUY/MARK CAIN - AWAKENINGS ENSEMBLE
Jazz drummer, Michael Pignéguy originally formed Awakenings Ensemble whilst working in the Middle East for a decade. Pignéguy’s music is infused with those eastern influences, but also with the rigour of his jazz training. Performing for the first time together in 2021, this 8-piece incarnation played a program, Tales of the Orient, featuring compositions by both Pignéguy and myself as well as contemporary and traditional pieces from countries spanning the middle east.
PRAASHEKH QIARTET/COLLECTIVE
Puna born, Praashekh Borkar is a fine sarod player who has also invented his own esarod, a smaller amplified version of the traditional Hindustani instrument.
Members of the Praashekh Quartet were variously: Shivakumar Balakrishnan (tabla) Vick Ramakrishnan (tabla), Wayan Dana (bass), Roy Martinez (bass), Jamie David (percussion) and myself (reeds).The group played at the 2019 National Folk Festival in Canberra; at both the 2017 and 2018 Fairbridge Festivals and the Festival of Voice (Denmark WA 2018). In 2019 members of the Praashekh Quartet toured as Tepistri (along with pedal steel guitarist, Lucky Oceans) in South West WA with blind British sitar player, Baluji Shrivastav.
For a few years now I've played with guitarist, Ilan Zagoria, who developed southern African guitar style growing up in Zimbabwe and being inspired by various southern African traditions. Since 1988 he has lived Australia. He skilfully blends southern African influences with those of his sephardic Jewish ancestry, as well as his love of jazz. Together we play in the Zagoria Quartet with bassist, Percy Kalino (also Brent Purser) and percussionist, Shane Kearney. Ilan Zagoria has recorded a number of albums under his own name and a duo album together, Shades.
Photo: Alma Sarhan Photography
In the Persian classical tradition the term, Daramad, refers to the process of beginning, appearing or emerging. Daramad emerged from musical meetings between musicians at Fremantle’s world music venue, Kulcha. This quartet explored the confluence between the music of the Middle East and improvised jazz and in particular, the modal common ground between these two traditions. It features Iranian saz and guitar maestro, Reza Mirzaei, his fellow countryman, Saeed Danesh on tombek, daf and various percussion, Michael Zolker, oud and eastern percussion, Phil Waldron, double bass and multi-instrumental reedman, Mark Cain. Surprising and unusual combinations of strings and wind textures are at the heart of the group’s sound, as are some of the challenging time signatures they play.
In 2013 Daramad won the Songlines/World Music Network international competition, Battle of the Bands which led to their inclusion on three of Rough Guide to World Music compilations albums. The second incarnation of Daramad saw jazz bassist, Kate Pass replaced Phil Waldron and for a short period, Persian singer, Tara Tiba joined the group.
Daramad their debut album on the Belgium label, Parenthèses Records in 2013.
OZMOSIS (Musica Viva in Schools) (Archive)
Hispanic, Balkan and jazz-inspired music from the global fringe, Ozmosis is a West Australian quartet of intrepid border-crossers. The group draws upon their experience of Hispanic, Latin American and Balkan music to create vibrant repertoire of largely original composition.
Ozmosis started as a duo with my old school friend, guitarist, Tim Chambers and became a quartet (with Amanda Dean and Paul Tanner) when invited to perform in the Musica Viva schools program (2008 - 1013). Prior to Ozmosis, percussionists, Paul Tanner, Amanda Dean and I played with Nova Ensemble 1991 - 2006)
Ozmosis: Tim Chambers (guitar, bajo sexto, guitarrra), Mark Cain (saxophones, tarogato, chalumeau, gemshorn, whistle), Amanda Dean (bass thongophone, guitar, djembe) and Paul Tanner (vibraphone, cahon, djembe). Mark and Tim's duo cd, Ozmosis, was released in 2008.
OZMOSIS STEET BAND
The Beat of Barcelona… Street music from Catalonia, North East Spain played on ancient reed and percussion instruments… perfect for outdoor festivals, street parades and family oriented festivals. Sharing the Mediterranean festive spirit!
This festive music is traditionally played to accompany a Catalan tradition, castelles, that involves participants climbing on each other's shoulders to create multi-storied human castles. Taught to the group by Catalan musician, Oriol Batet, Ozmosis Street Band's music is played on distinctive woodwind instruments called grallas (pron: gral-yas), in this case crafted by local Fremantle maker, Mark Binns using Australian woods, based on traditional instruments from Catalonia. The gralla is a wooden, open-holed double-reed folk oboe or shawm that is native to Catalonia.
NOVA ENSEMBLE was founded by percussionist, David Pye in 1983. Playing a repertoire of 20th century percussion works. Over time there was an increasing orientation toward Australian composition and then progressively, a Western Australian focus as Nova evolved into a variety of performance settings based in its studio in Fremantle, Western Australia.
Nova explored aspects of music technology, contemporary instrument design and building, cross-cultural music, collaborative composition and improvisation. The members of the group were all involved in creating repertoire for the group, and each brought diverse skills to our performances.
I became a member of Nova in 1991 and worked with the group in concert, workshop and touring settings up to 2006. Over this time I was involved in designing and composing for new instruments built from a range of industrial plastics [predominantly PVC plumbing and electrical pipe], following on from my early work in creative instrument design and performance, firstly, with Tall Stories [1985], then AC/PVC throughout the late 1980s.
A productive relationship between Nova and Musica Viva Australia over fifteen years enabled the group to perform in schools and communities throughout Australia and Singapore. During my tenure with Nova I worked on numerous projects that included both instrument making and composition, including three Musica Viva in Schools shows over a fifteen year period: Boxes, Trash and Pockets. Other performance projects included: Junkelan, a large theatre-based show [written as part of a creative development grant from the West Australian Department for the Arts - ArtsWA], Inventions and Etchings [commissioned by 2 Dance Plus], and both Ritual Fragments and The Lament of Gilgamesh [commissioned by the Festival of Perth]. Some of our repertoire of those years has been recorded: the CD Junkelan was released in 1998, with Pockets being released in November 2001.
Another offshoot Nova project was the Orchestra of the Global Nomads, featuring a larger band that brought together the wide ranging interests of it members in a composing and performing collective. Their music brought together a combination of gamelan, world percussion and pvc thongophones, combining with winds and strings. An 8-10 piece group of great potential, but costly to maintain, unfortunately it couldn't be sustained. The results of this collaboration were released on an eponymously titled cassette in the mid-90s. For those who saw the Global Nomads there are many fond memories.
I first performed alongside musicians of Nova as a member of AC/PVC at the studios of the ABC, Perth in 1989 in a piece called Mimic Time written by Peter Hadley. This was the beginning of a long association for me. Nova then joined AC/PVC in 1990 at the Ozone Bar in Northbridge, Perth, in what turned out to be AC/PVC's last concert. In the following year Nova invited me to join them and the rest, as they say, is history.
During my tenure with Nova we toured to Singapore twice, as part of a Musica Viva touring programme in schools, Brunei, Taiwan and the JakArt Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia. The group also performed extensively in metropolitan and regional WA as well as the Northern Territory, Tasmania, Queensland, and Sydney. In 1998 we played at a Synergy Percussion collaborative concert at the Sydney Town Hall, "Beat It". In 2005 Nova embarked on a 4-week Musica Viva Across the Top tour to the Kimberley, Northern Territory and north Queensland.
I would like to personally thank Nova Ensemble founder David Pye, for the enormous creative energy he gave to guiding Nova over those many years of my involvement as a composer, administrator and catalyst. David had an encompassing vision and boundless energy! This period had an enormous impact on my career.
Visit the nova ensemble website Mark Cain and Paul Tanner in the Murchison WA - Musica VivaCLUB QAHIRA with ROSE 2009 - 13
Club Qahira was a lineup that centred around the inimitable bellydancer, Rose (Rose Ottaviano) and featured oud player, Michael Zolker and myself on reeds. Together we performed a stylish programme of music and dance from the Middle East, fused with the spontaneity of improvisation.
THE FLYING CARPATHIANS 2006 - 2010
Voted best World Music Act at the 2008 WAMI Awards, The Flying Carpathians played a contagiously energetic fusion of music from central and eastern Europe with a uniquely Australian touch
[his was a band of fine musicians and friends who just sparked together. Had we not decided to up stumps and live at various corners of the known universe, we would still be out there at the Gypsy Tapas House in Fremantle as well as weddings, parties and bar mitzvahs. More Balkan than Carpathian, but what's in a name?
The band: Tony Lane (fiddle, guitar, mandolin), Jamie David (guitar, djembe, kora, balafon), Sara Peet (el. bass, cello) and me (reeds).
AC/PVC For a detailed history of AC/PVC go to the PROJECT page
My musical signature is my passion for making instruments from bits of PVC pipe and other recyclable materials (for more see AC/PVC under Projects in the menu at top). The refinement of instruments I have created from such unconventional sources has found its way into much of my work, particularly in music education. Over two decades I have performed in schools throughout Australia with Nexus Arts agency in Melbourne and through the national Musica Viva in Schools programme. My instruments have been heard and played by children and adults in some of Aboriginal Australia's most remote centres as well as in clustered and densely populated schools and communities in Singapore and Indonesia.
Promoted since the mid-90s by Nexus Arts in Victoria, my solo show, The World of PVC Music, "is as much a hands-on workshop as a performance that relishes in the simple, often idiosyncratic discoveries that have dawned on instrument makers over the centuries. What unfolds for the audience is an improbable Plastic Fantastic Orchestra of whimsical, innovative, yet sometimes oddly familiar instruments that explode some of the myths behind musical sophistication. Through engaging humour and the occasional flight of musical virtuosity, The World of PVC Music, shows us that sometimes the simplest discoveries using the simplest materials are the most exciting... and musical".
THE PERFORMANCE
Nexus Arts blurb... Mark Cain's World of PVC Music celebrates the "joie de vivre" of musical discovery. Materials such as the humble plumber's drain pipe and other recyclable plastics are used to create a wondrous orchestra of outrageous and innovative wind and percussion instruments. With its emphasis on hands-on participation, experimentation and listening, this entertaining presentation also offers students the opportunity to:
Gain an insight into how instruments are made and played.
Learn some of the science of instrument-making and sound production.
Participate in playing instruments from Mark's Plastic Fantastic Orchestra.
What Schools Say about Mark;s Solo show - Feedback to Nexus Arts
"The children loved it. They like his inventions and were enthralled and amazed. There was brilliant and clever participation which was good at all levels. Even grade 6’s were enthralled. Awesome."
Mooroolbark East PS (Vic)Students were captivated by Mark’s performances and highly involved in his demonstrations. He had genuine enthusiasm and excitement for his craft and working with the children. He sparked teachers to further explore music through integrated curriculum. Glen Forest PS (WA)"Innovative and inspiring"
St Luke's Primary Lalor (Vic)"Excellent. Sensational. Mark Cain would be well worth getting back again. On a score of 1 – 10, it was an 11+. Fantastic!"
MacFarlane PS (NT)"Mark Cain was a serious ‘groover’. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed the performance THIS much."
St James PS Vermont (Vic)The students were thrilled to attend and particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to be involved. Mark was great with the students and had their attention 100% Absolutely brilliant! Seville PS
"The children were enthralled by what was offered – the whole experience was outstanding. Thanks for sharing your talents."
City Beach PS (WA)"Mark’s interactive show was brilliant in its simplicity. It was amazing (and refreshing) to see an audience of 260 children totally captivated by a performer who had no fancy costumes, special effects, amplification or technological 'tricks'."
Ormond PS (Vic)"Mark Cain's musical presentation was outstanding and the best cultural experience I have been involved in."
Salmon Gums Primary School (WA)"Magnificent, innovative, inspirational workshop atmosphere gave a great hands-on experience."
Albanvale Primary School (Vic)"A great experience for children and teachers."
St Francis of Assisi Primary School (Vic)A BRIEF HISTORY OF WIND (Archive)
Musical innovators, Mark Cain and Lee Buddle take a fanciful journey through the tangents and cul-de-sacs of wind instrument invention past, present and future.
The blurb... Versatile and offbeat woodwind maestros, Lee Buddle and Mark Cain, share a wealth of experience in jazz, new music, ethno-folk and classical idioms. Now they push the envelope just a little further in this "journey through the tangents and cul-de-sacs of wind music past, present and future". They play wind instruments you've never dreamed of.
Fresh from delighting audiences at the Brisbane Powerhouse and the Harbourside Festival, Albany, this finely crafted performance of original music composed by Windcheaters, will leave you [and the musicians] breathless!
"Mark and Lee are brilliant. In over 20 years teaching it was the best incursion I've seen."
Music Teacher, City Beach Primary School
Looking back...
A Brief History of Wind was a natural, if somewhat belated evolution of my work with AC/PVC and working with fellow reed player, Lee Buddle, in Windcheaters, as we called our duo, was one of the most exploratory and fun times of my musical career. We made some wonderful discoveries. Creating our compressed-air panpipes in both soprano and bass forms was, at least for us, revelatory. Our innovation (Lee's idea) was to create a lip at the point at the top of the tube over which a burst of compressed air is channelled. This is based on the idea that one's lip curvature is critical in playing a flute. We experimented placing small sections of plastic hose at the top edge of each panpipe - point at which the compressed air impacted at the top of the upright panpipe tubes. We then used tuned "feeder" tubes (of various tuned lengths) to channel the compressed air at the perfect angle toward the lip of each panpipe. Effectively, the air would roll over the tops of the "lips" to create breathy, but clear warm tones. Because compressed air makes a noise when blown through a horizontal length of pvc tube, by tuning the horizontal feeder tubes to the same pitch as the upright panpipe tubes, we were able to largely cancel out any pitch conflict between the two. One challenge was playing the bass set accurately in time - the lower notes would generally "speak" a little more slowly than the higher pitched pipes. Hence, on the lower set one had to play slightly ahead of the tempo to keep in time.
Some Foo for thought...
One family of instruments we had a great fun making were our "giant foos". In the past, I had made a small clarinet-like instrument that uses a balloon and film cannister to create a reed-like sound. I called this the foo-foo pipe. [Quite recently, I was amazed to discover quite coincidentally that in the 1930s there was a maritime kazoo orchestra in Fremantle (where I live) called the Fremantle Foo-Foo Band]. The genesis of this instrument I discovered whilst travelling in Indonesia in the early 90s visiting a friend, percussionist Ron Reeves, in Bandung. In subsequent years many a foo-foo pipe was made with children in my instrument making workshops and this continues today. The foo-foo pipe is a fine example of inventive recycling and demonstrates with great clarity and simplicity some of the connections between music and science.
Extrapolation from the small foo-foo pipe led to the innovation of our Contrabass Foo, a very large (4 meter) slide didgeridoo-like instrument, activated by an inflated rubber glove and the aforementioned balloon reed - very low and very awesome!
But perhaps our most challenging instrument in performance was our contra-six-person-flute! Visualise a three meter long flute with a diameter of 150mm and imagine channeling compressed air against the edge of a huge flute fipple hole (blowing hole) at one end and having six members of the audience closing one large hole each with their palms (see right). This part of the performance relied on each 'player' using the palm of one hand to completely close each hole to ensure an accurate seal, just as a key closes over a flute hole - brilliant when it worked... To achieve the lowest note (a very, very low G), all hands needed to be perfectly closed over their holes whilst the air pressure from the compressed air gun (again channelled through a narrow tube across a lip) at the fipple end was nuanced to a gentle flow - an occasion of rare and wondrous beauty when all hands were properly sealing the holes.
The climax of the show featured volunteers building chords on the two sets of compressed air panpipes whilst the drone of the contabass foo was played by Lee pedalling a foot pump to inflate a large rubber glove which, in turn, forced a continuous stream of air against a vibrating balloon reed, whilst at the same time playing bass clarinet and intermittently sliding the end of the contrabass foo to shift the drone pitch... Sounds exhausting?
In the meantime, I would connect a compressed air hose with an attached handgun to an inflated car tyre. To the end of the handgun I'd attach my "surgical glove bagpipe". An audience member was then invited to control the handgun air supply to the bagpipe by squeezing the trigger, whilst standing on the tyre itself. At the same time, I played a melody on the chanter of the bagpipe to the accompaniment of a swelling pedal chord. It was a powerful climax to the show.
Our encore was suitably down market. We quickly donned raincoats and caps, whilst audience members showered us with water pistols at close range, whilst I sang "Singing in the Rain" through a toilet bowl-as-amplifier accompanied by Lee on foo-foo pipe (film canister clarinet).
Just as with AC/PVC earlier, this project felt like some clandestine backyard music laboratory in search of some fanciful holy grail. A Brief History of Wind was for us both an enthralling and playful journey into the black and mysterious hole of musical instrument invention.
Touring With SIROCCO (2012)
Sirocco, founded in 1980 in Sydney by Bill O'Toole, remain perhaps Australia's most renowned, and loved world music group. Sirocco invited me to join them on their Musica Viva Albany/Esperance regional tour in 2012 (as a replacement for their regular wind player, Paul Jarman) for what was originally to be a two-week tour of schools in the southern region. Unfortunately, just a week prior to the tour commencement I suffered a serious bout of pneumonia and was hospitalised. As fortune would have it, I was able to recover sufficiently to join the group for the second week. It was an opportunity I just didn't want to forego. Playing alongside members (including founding member, Andrew de Teliga, along with percussionist, Peter Jacob and keyboardist, Hugh Moran) of a band who were something of a household name in Australian music (and players I really admired) was great experience. I have fond memories of that trip. Sirocco have finally hung up their boots and this, I think, was their swan song tour for Musica Viva.
BULGARITY
The blurb... An improvising duo comprising Ross Bolleter [accordian] and Mark Cain [saxophones], Bulgarity invests a rich vein of Balkan and klezmer-influenced music with a highly personal improvisational style that defies category. Whilst some of their repertoir draws from vibrant village music and dance traditions, the duo take considerable liberties to make this music their own. It's risk-taking acoustic music that lives in the moment.
Ross and Mark are longtime musical colleagues and friends who have played in many settings together over the years. Their first group, Slices of Albert (with Toss Mahoney) played at the 1983 Fringe Benefit Improvisation Festival in Sydney and Newcastle. Ross and Mark have played together in numerous festivals and tours including the Perth Festival of Improvised Music, the Evos New Music Festival and Tura New Music Festival. Mark and Ross share a love of Jewish klezmer music, Balkan folk and spontaneous improvisation. Ross Bolleter is an extrordinary pianist & accordionist whose many recordings featuring his ground breaking work on ruined piano can be accessed from his website. He remains a great personal friend and inspiration and intermittently we continue to play together.
EARLIER GROUPS
CARAVAN (with Andy Copeman, Corinne Brokken & Dipaunka Macrides)
TOUCAN TANGO with Steve and Ros Barnes
THE ELASTIC BAND (with Rex Horan, Leanne Glover, Glenn Rogers, Paul Tanner)
LANGUAGE (with Deocleziano (Diego) Bosco and Derek Nannup)
RITA MENENDEZ GROUP (with Tim Chambers and Phil Kakulas)
CRAB TANGO with Tim Chambers
WANDERLUST TRIO (with Phil Kakulas & Sally Trewin)
SLICES OF ALBERT (with Ross Bolleter and Tos Mahoney) Performed together at the 1983 Fringe Benefit Festival, Sydney
TALL STORIES (with Linsey Pollak, Kerry Fletcher, Susie Sickert & Jane Mullett - toured the Pilbara and Kimberley in 1985
TALL STORIES TOUR - PILBARA AND KIMBERLEY 1985
My professional life as a musician started here...
In 1985 Tall Stories was a concept hatched by the performer I consider in many ways my mentor, Sydney musician Linsey Pollak, who had just completed his tenure as founder and coordinator of the North Perth Ethnic Music Centre. In something rare for funding bodies, Linsey was invited (by the WA Arts Council) to bring together a group of players to embark on a funded ten-week tour of the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of WA. Tall stories was a playful five-piece show combining elements of music and theatre, including stilt-walking, in which the cast wore rather other-worldly attire in a story based around the metaphor of a clash of civilisations. A show of two halves, the first was the theatre piece in which our stage props became musical instruments and the only language spoken was through music. In the second half we would shift into band mode to perform a repertoire of African and Balkan fare, teaching simple European folk dances, whilst inviting audience participation. It was a wonderful tour full of rich and life-changing experiences and greatly shaped my future career in experimental instrument making. Tall Stories were: Linsey Pollak, Jane Mullet (formerly of Circus Oz), Suzie Sickert, Kerry Fletcher and myself.
The booklet below was created by the students and after our show at Gogo Station School, near Fitzroy Crossing.
