Someone Else's Song: Playing Cajun in Australia

Abstract

We fall in love at some time in our lives. I fell in love with Cajun music. In 1976 I heard Cajun music for the first time. I didn't know where it came from, who the Cajuns were, or what their history was. I just heard their music and thought that I would like to play music like that. It came out of nowhere, felt right, and I wanted to be swept up by it. Over the last twenty years I have taken elements of traditional music repertoire and performance techniques and attempted to create an Australian-Cajun hybrid style of music. My professional work has involved 'claiming' aspects of other peoples' cultural heritage and I am currently exploring this in a Master of Arts by project at RMIT University. In my research project I am presenting and performing a folio of Cajun-style compositions, as well as an exegesis examining the historical and social processes associated with introducing Cajun music from the US into Australia.