Guest Lecture Series

Famed puppet master and UC Berkeley Professor Midiyanto gives a lecture on the topics of “Rasa” one of the beautiful esoteric concepts of Javanese Gamelan.

Rarely attempted in American gamelan performances, Phil will discuss this exciting and beautiful form that is a regular part of Solonese klenengan.

Peter is a Fellow at Yale’s Tropic Resource Institute and speaks on his Thesis: Technology and Tradition in Java: Natural Resource Access and Innovation in the Gamelan Instrument Industry

Film director Matt Dunning give a discussion on his sensory ethnographic gamelan film “The Stirring of a Thousand Bells” Released by Sublime Frequencies (SF094), featuring a very rare type of gamelan, and a beautiful dance from the Mangkunegaran Palace.

Professor Sumarsam from Wesleyan University discusses previous lectures and gives us the history and context of gamelan throughout the ages leading to a video about one of gamelans unique artforms called “Gift of the Wali: The Gamelan Sekaten in Central Java”followed by a discussion.

Alex from Friends of the Gamelan in Chicago discusses the various theories and possibilities when constructing gamelan suites out of multiple compositions

Darsono Hadiraharjo, a Visiting Critic with Cornell’s Southeast Asia Program, discusses the music and career paths of his parents, Bapak Saguh Hadi Raharjo and Ibu Panut, in conversation with Cornell Senior Lecturer Christopher J. Miller. Darono’s parent’s were members of some of the most famous and influential gamelan groups from the 60’s to 2000’s like Condhong Raos and, Ngripto Raras. Lecture complete with musical examples and personal stories.

As an experienced cross-cultural gamelan player, composer, teacher, and collaborator in this field, I have noted that creativity is needed in the gamelan practices. It is a unique musical capability that strongly help “my” (and perhaps also “your”) musical journeys…so lets share in this class then.

Senior Lecturer at Cornell, Chris Miller gives a thoughtful presentation on some of the building blocks of gamelan music

An overview of this lively East Javanese form of wayang kulit, in which traditional systems of apprenticeship and collective local sponsorship continue to strongly influence performance practices.

The rich vocal-music tradition within Javanese karawitan is often a mystery to beginners. Some of this mystery can be unlocked by understanding the category of sung poetry known as macapat, and how macapat are used every day in the performance tradition. Kitsie Emerson, who has lived in Java for almost 30 years studying karawitan and wayang kulit gives an introduction to macapat, using live examples from her and Pak Wakidi’s arts center in Solo.

Jessika Kenney is a composer, writer, and performer working from the experience of listening to voices and vocalized response. Jessika will give a workshop which draws on life-long interests, including singing with gamelan, to inspire others to create their own unique vocal practices while in and out of various degrees of quarantine.

Banjarmasin-based ethnomusicologist Novyandi Saputra, MA is joined by Aural Archipelago founder Palmer Keen to share to share their work on the gamelan worlds of South Kalimantan, from Novyandi’s lifelong immersion in the gamelan Banjar tradition to Palmer’s research on the ritual gamalan of the Dayak Halong.

Madurese ethnomusicologist Panakajaya Hidayatullah, MA ia joined by Aural Archipelago founder Palmer Keen in discussing their research and documentation of rare Madurese gamelan offshoots in the Madurese Horseshoe of East Java, including glundhangan, an all-wooden “gamelan for pigeons,” and dhungdhungan, an ensemble of tuned drums.

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part 1. Wayne Vitale speaks on “Geregel” (2000) which used the newly-popular seven-tone gamelan semaradana to explore rhythms and tonalities unknown in Balinese music till then.

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part 2. Pete Steele discusses “Caru Wara” (2006) for the standard gamelan gong kebyar, which took Balinese rhythm to a still-higher level.

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part #3 Oscar Smith will discuss the design and tuning of Alit’s own gamelan Salukat, and his first major work for it, the polymetric and modally-extended “Genetik” (2012).

Since 2000, Dewa Alit (b. 1973) of Pengosekan, Bali, has earned appreciation at home and internationally as the composer of consistently demanding, exploratory and rigorously designed music.

Part #4 To close this 45 part series Michael Tenzer discusses “Ngejuk Memedi” (2016) which features whole new Balinese sound worlds and ingenious structures.

Henry Spiller presents a broad, general overview of Sundanese music—especially gamelan music—customized for those with a North American’s practical acquaintance with Javanese gamelan. The talk will leverage the similarities between Javanese and Sundanese musics to highlight Sundanese music’s unique qualities in terms of instrumentation, playing styles, and repertoire

In this talk Andy McGraw describes his research on temporality in Balinese gamelan music.

Indonesian artist scholars, Ayu Eka and Putu Tangkas discusses the process of creating their latest collaborative dance piece for Balinese gamelan, Tari Kreasi “Laku.” In doing so, highlighting the concepts of the piece as they pertain to social mobility in Colorado and Bali.

A frank discussion about the role that music and dance studios (sanggar) can play in creating environment friendly alternatives to single-use plastic in everyday life in Bali, particularly at ceremonies, practices and performances. With the aim of inspiring others, Mekar Bhuana Co-founders, Vaughan Hatch and Putu Evie will present the solutions they have come up with and how they apply these within their own family as well as teams of musicians and dancers.

Between 1890 and 1939, laborers from the Dutch East Indies were “recruited” by the colonial government to work on plantations in Suriname, the Netherlands’ much smaller colony on the Caribbean coast of South America, after slavery was abolished there. Today, a distinct gamelan tradition is practiced by ethnically Javanese people in Suriname and in Javanese-Surinamese communities in the Netherlands.

The first in a series of instrument specific Gamelan Masters Lectures talking about the basics of music theory and practice of various gamelan instruments. We start with one of the most important instruments int he group, the “Gender” with Midiyanto,

Ed’s talk focuses on the intersecting possibilities of looking at language, interaction, and karawitan. He discusses the older forms of Balinese and Javanese, and what those texts can tell us about what happened historically to bring us to the contemporary forms of those languages, as well as how they show clear affinities to other members of the greater Austronesian language family, especially the Philippine-type languages.

SUmarsam reflects on his experiences learning the gender: “How did I learn gendèr? How did my teachers use cèngkok (gendèr melodic patterns) to teach? What is the genesis of the names of cèngkok? How can a student become a good gendèr player?” These are among the questions Sumarsam had in mind when writing the manuscript. He is happy to share this “work-in-progress” with us.

Various Asian cultures have used puppets to model curing when disease or disaster threaten and, through miniaturization, to allow in a brief lifespan to envision more cosmic processes. Puppets/masks, including, of course wayang/topeng, have been put to work delivering the souls from hellish pains and allowing initiates to step from mundane to cosmic time.

As Indonesia explored a new world of independence in the 1950s and 1960s, the question of how to be simultaneously Indonesian and “modern” fell largely on the nation’s women. A reading of the voices that emerged through women’s magazines therefore offers a highly nuanced understanding of the process of the development of Indonesian national identity during the Sukarno era.

In this talk Lisa shares research on musical transmission, performance practice, and recent developments in Balinese wayang (shadow puppet theater) and gender wayang across several generations. Her elderly teachers in the 1980s and 90s shared with me memories of zaman/jaman dulu (a concept of a rich, bygone past) from the early 20th Century as they saw the wayang repertoire of their teacher’s time diminishing.

Richard North (who has been studying, teaching and performing Cirebon gamelan music since 1976) and his wife Felicia Danon North (a talented Cirebon Topeng (mask) dancer who has been playing Cirebon gamelan since 1998) will give a lively and informal introduction to five genres of gamelan music from the ancient north coast Javanese kingdom of Cirebon. Richard currently directs the University of California Santa Barbara Gamelan Ensemble, as well as the community group Gamelan Sinar Surya.

Master suling player Burhan Sukarma discusses and demonstrates, through live and recorded playing, the role of the Sundanese suling in Gamelan Degung, Tembang Sunda, and Kacapi-Suling.

Bandung composer, musician, educator and music director Iwan Gunawan explores his gamelan-centered international music performance and compositional career. For over 15 years he has sought to express through his hybrid music not only his native Sundanese traditions but also to reflect Western musical practices and aesthetics.

Andrews talk focuses on the many aspects of the hybrid musical work of the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG), a Toronto-based professional ensemble playing degung – and often working with musical forces from other traditions and media: dance, feature film, video and shadow theater.

The Karaton Surakarta has had to make hard choices between maintaining its buildings or its rituals. Under Pakubuwana XII (reigned 1942-2005) the consistent policy was to give priority to the demanding cycles of ritual renewal while buildings were left to fall into disrepair. When in 1992 three princesses declared a hunger strike, it called attention to a dramatic mismatch between conventional practices of historic preservation and the living culture of the Karaton.

Based on Joko Sutrisno’s experience teaching gamelan for many years in Minneapolis, he has devised 6 steps to learn and make gamelan music. These Steps however can be applied to other areas in life to make your dreams come true in other areas such as finance, health, and relationships. Joko will talk about this concept and practical philosophy that is his guide to success.