MARK CAIN Musician - Instrument Maker – Educator
Western Australian saxophonist, multi-wind player, instrument maker and composer Mark Cain is one of his state’s most experienced musicians, performing and conducting workshops in schools and communities both in Australia and overseas. As a multi-instrumentalist and instrument maker he co-founded the innovative concept group AC/PVC in 1987; toured internationally with Nova Ensemble; performed in the national Musica Viva schools program for more than two decades (Nova Ensemble and Ozmosis) and over a similar period has worked nationally as a solo schools performer with Nexus Arts, Victoria, playing instruments of his own invention. During this span he has performed and conducted teacher in-service sessions in countless schools both in city and regional Australia. In 2014 and 2015 Cain was Musician in Residence for Tura New Music in indigenous communities on the Dampier Peninsula, Kimberley, WA. Mark Cain plays a cornucopia of wind and percussion instruments, including saxophones, clarinets, flutes and a variety of self-invented and ethnic wind and percussion instruments. |
ESFANDIAR SHAHMIR - Persian ney and daf
Trained under Master Bijan Kamkar in Daf and Pasha Hanjani in Ney, Esfandiar Shahmir, an Iranian musician obtained his BA in acting at University of Arak. Amongst the highlights of his musicianship are playing at Homay & Mastan Ensemble from 2004, touring in USA, Europe and other extensive areas. Esfandiar is one of the founding members of Eastwinds giving life to music with traditional Iranian instruments such as ney and daf. |
SAEGUSA YOSHITAKA (Sanshi) - Didgeridoo
SANSHI (Yoshitaka Saegusa) is a Japanese contemporary didgeridoo player living in Fremantle, Western Australia. Sanshi started playing didgeridoo in 1997. His passion took him to Arnhemland, the home of didgeridoo, where he met the didgeridoo master Djalu Gurruwiwi and his family. Sanshi was adopted into their family and given an aboriginal name “Malarra Yunupingu” (meaning Manta Ray). He performs as a solo artist, collaboration artist, studio musician, in the trio “Breath”, World fusion Band "Eastwinds" and Japanese Taiko drumming group "Taiko On". Sanshi had played with several musicians and artists, from modern electro music to classical music, world instruments, dancers, live painting artists and live poetry readings. Sanshi’s didgeridoo performance techniques, variety of percussive rhythms and diverse range of sounds are ground breaking. His CDs include: “Chikyu” (meaning Earth); “Bansuri”; “Ancestral Spiral” and other collaboration albums have also been released. He also run a didgeridoo shop “Didgeridoo Breath” in Fremantle, and is a highly respected teacher of didgeridoo globally, teaching online on the "Didgeridoo Dojo". |
STEVE BARNES - String instruments (guitar, guizouki)
Steve Barnes is a veteran player of assorted plucked string instruments in a range of styles and bands including various Irish pub bands in the USA and Australia, original folk/acoustic acts and world music line-ups, playing pretty much all of the major folk/acoustic festivals around Australia at one time or another. He also served for seventeen years as the Artistic Director of the fabulous Fairbridge Festival, and when he’s not doing those things he’s a research geologist with the CSIRO in Perth. His job in the band is to play the groove and not get in the way. He plays a custom 6 string acoustic guitar made by Scott Wise from Margaret River, and an 8-string guitar-bouzouki hybrid made by Graham MacDonald from Canberra, tuned GDAE. |