Showing posts with label gamelan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gamelan. Show all posts
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Gamelan Sekar Jaya performs its first-ever Arcata concert of traditional Balinese gamelan and cutting-edge compositions, on Saturday, May 3 at 8 PM in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. $10 general, $5 students from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. Guest Music Director: Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana. An HSU Dept. of Music production.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya performs its first-ever Arcata concert of traditional Balinese gamelan and cutting-edge compositions, on Saturday, May 3 at 8 PM in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. $10 general, $5 students from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. Guest Music Director: Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana. An HSU Dept. of Music production.
Bay Area’s Gamelan Sekar Jaya in First Arcata Concert
Gamelan Sekar Jaya performs its first concert ever in Arcata, with pieces ranging from traditional dances to new hybrid forms of the Balinese music called gamelan.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya is the only group outside Bali to receive the Dharma Kusuma, Bali's highest award for artistic achievement. The company is renowned for its exploration of traditional and modern forms through long-term residencies with Bali's finest musicians and dancers. Formed in 1979 in the Bay Area, the orchestra has performed in venues ranging from remote village squares in Bali to LA's Hollywood Bowl.
The twenty musicians play on several sets of Balinese instruments, consisting of various combinations of bronze-keyed metallophones or bamboo marimbas, gongs, drums, flutes, and other instruments.
The Arcata concert will feature the lush bronze sonorities of two Balinese gamelan ensembles -- angklung, and gender wayang -- and the expressive movements of Balinese dance.
The group will be led by one of Bali's most esteemed musicians, I Dewa Ketut Alit Adnayna. He is a founding member of Bali's renowned ensemble Cudamani, which recently completed its third US tour.
The concert will include a refined devotional dance, Puja Santi, with original music by I Dewa Putu Berata; the masked dance Jauk, performed by I Made Moja, the delicate music of gender wayang, and traditional angklung music heard in Balinese temple festivals.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya performs its first Arcata concert on Saturday, May 3 at 8 PM in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. $10 general, $5 students from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. Guest Music Director: Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana. An HSU Dept. of Music production.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya performs its first concert ever in Arcata, with pieces ranging from traditional dances to new hybrid forms of the Balinese music called gamelan.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya is the only group outside Bali to receive the Dharma Kusuma, Bali's highest award for artistic achievement. The company is renowned for its exploration of traditional and modern forms through long-term residencies with Bali's finest musicians and dancers. Formed in 1979 in the Bay Area, the orchestra has performed in venues ranging from remote village squares in Bali to LA's Hollywood Bowl.
The twenty musicians play on several sets of Balinese instruments, consisting of various combinations of bronze-keyed metallophones or bamboo marimbas, gongs, drums, flutes, and other instruments.
The Arcata concert will feature the lush bronze sonorities of two Balinese gamelan ensembles -- angklung, and gender wayang -- and the expressive movements of Balinese dance.
The group will be led by one of Bali's most esteemed musicians, I Dewa Ketut Alit Adnayna. He is a founding member of Bali's renowned ensemble Cudamani, which recently completed its third US tour.
The concert will include a refined devotional dance, Puja Santi, with original music by I Dewa Putu Berata; the masked dance Jauk, performed by I Made Moja, the delicate music of gender wayang, and traditional angklung music heard in Balinese temple festivals.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya performs its first Arcata concert on Saturday, May 3 at 8 PM in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. $10 general, $5 students from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. Guest Music Director: Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana. An HSU Dept. of Music production.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Gamelan X Comes to HSU
Bay Area world music ensemble Gamelan X brings its high energy world music to Humboldt State University on Saturday, March 8.
HSU Music Department Director of Percussion Studies Eugene Novotney calls them “an outstanding group that mixes world music from Asia, Africa and the Middle East into exciting interlocking rhythms, haunting melodies and a deep and funky groove. Gamelan X is the perfect show for a Humboldt audience.”
According to the group’s web site (http://gamelanx.com/) Gamelan X draws musical inspiration from Indonesian, Balkan, African, Indian and American traditions. Instruments used include dozens of small and large gongs (central to the gamelan tradition of Indonesia), plus wind and string instruments, synthesizers, drums and percussion. Their shows include group choreography and crowd interaction to take audiences “on a journey through a wide range of exotic musical spaces.”
Gamelan X comes to HSU at the tail-end of a Northwest and Northern CA tour, trailing clouds of a glorious press. Todd LaVoie in the SF Bay Guardian describes their music as “trance-inducing rhythms pinballing between Balinese gongs…This formidable primitive-futurist improvisational collective of epic proportions bashes out Indonesian marching music made for dance clubs yet to be conceived.”
“Gamelan X is a precision-guided tour de force of rhythm, sounds, theater and performance art,” said Evan Levy, Director of Art in Freedom Park in Atlanta, Georgia. “Think Cirque du Soleil meets Sun Ra, and you won’t want to miss them.”
“Gamelan X literally stopped the show,” said the director of the 2005 Arts Expo Gala in San Francisco. “Our guests were mesmerized by the pageantry, energy and authentic ritual. It was like nothing they’d seen before.”
“The Gamelan X show is the first step in an effort to bring the music of Asia, and specifically Indonesia, to the Humboldt stage,” Novotney said. “I would love to start a Gamelan program here at HSU some day.” Novotney used about half the prize money from his 2006 CSU Wang Award to purchase gamelan instruments from Indonesia.
Gamelan X performs on Saturday, March 8 at 8 PM. in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets $8 general, $3 student/senior from HSU ticket office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. This concert is co-sponsored by the HSU Department of Music, the HSU Diversity Program Funding Committee, the HSU Percussion Ensemble and Gamelan Sekar Sequoia.
Media: Arcata Eye, North Coast Journal, Eureka Times-Standard Northern Lights, HSU Online, Humboldt Beacon.
Bay Area world music ensemble Gamelan X brings its high energy world music to Humboldt State University on Saturday, March 8.
HSU Music Department Director of Percussion Studies Eugene Novotney calls them “an outstanding group that mixes world music from Asia, Africa and the Middle East into exciting interlocking rhythms, haunting melodies and a deep and funky groove. Gamelan X is the perfect show for a Humboldt audience.”
According to the group’s web site (http://gamelanx.com/) Gamelan X draws musical inspiration from Indonesian, Balkan, African, Indian and American traditions. Instruments used include dozens of small and large gongs (central to the gamelan tradition of Indonesia), plus wind and string instruments, synthesizers, drums and percussion. Their shows include group choreography and crowd interaction to take audiences “on a journey through a wide range of exotic musical spaces.”
Gamelan X comes to HSU at the tail-end of a Northwest and Northern CA tour, trailing clouds of a glorious press. Todd LaVoie in the SF Bay Guardian describes their music as “trance-inducing rhythms pinballing between Balinese gongs…This formidable primitive-futurist improvisational collective of epic proportions bashes out Indonesian marching music made for dance clubs yet to be conceived.”
“Gamelan X is a precision-guided tour de force of rhythm, sounds, theater and performance art,” said Evan Levy, Director of Art in Freedom Park in Atlanta, Georgia. “Think Cirque du Soleil meets Sun Ra, and you won’t want to miss them.”
“Gamelan X literally stopped the show,” said the director of the 2005 Arts Expo Gala in San Francisco. “Our guests were mesmerized by the pageantry, energy and authentic ritual. It was like nothing they’d seen before.”
“The Gamelan X show is the first step in an effort to bring the music of Asia, and specifically Indonesia, to the Humboldt stage,” Novotney said. “I would love to start a Gamelan program here at HSU some day.” Novotney used about half the prize money from his 2006 CSU Wang Award to purchase gamelan instruments from Indonesia.
Gamelan X performs on Saturday, March 8 at 8 PM. in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets $8 general, $3 student/senior from HSU ticket office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. This concert is co-sponsored by the HSU Department of Music, the HSU Diversity Program Funding Committee, the HSU Percussion Ensemble and Gamelan Sekar Sequoia.
Media: Arcata Eye, North Coast Journal, Eureka Times-Standard Northern Lights, HSU Online, Humboldt Beacon.
What's Gamelan?
Information edited from Wikipedia:
A gamelan is a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesia typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs. The term refers more to the set of instruments than the players of those instruments. A gamelan as a set of instruments is a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are not interchangeable. The word "gamelan" comes from the Javanese word "gamel", meaning to strike or hammer, and the suffix "an", which makes the root a collective noun.
Gamelan is found in the Indonesian islands of Java, Madura, Bali, and Lombok (and other Sunda Islands), in a wide variety of ensemble sizes and formations. In Bali and Lombok today, and in Java through the 18th century, the term "gong" has been preferred to or synonymous with gamelan. Traditions of gamelan-like ensembles also exist in the Philippines, Malaysia and Suriname, sometimes due to emigration, historic trade, or diplomacy. More recently, through immigration and local enthusiasm, gamelan ensembles have become active throughout Europe, America, Asia, and Australia.
Gamelan music is built up in layers. At its centre is a basic melody (core melody) known as the balungan. Further layers, including singing in vocal pieces, elaborate upon this melody in certain ways, but the notes of each layer of music relate to the balungan, and generally coincide at the ends of phrases (called seleh in Javanese). There are also a set of instruments which delineate a colotomic structure, usually ending in the stroke of the largest gong.
The gamelan has an old and mysterious origin. Apparently it predates the Hindu-Buddhist culture that dominated Indonesia in its earliest records, and instead represents a native art form. The instruments developed into their current form during the Majapahit Empire.[1] In contrast to the heavy Indian influence in other art forms, the only obvious Indian influence in gamelan music is in the Javanese style of singing.[2]
In Javanese mythology, the gamelan was created by Sang Hyang Guru in Saka era 167 (c. AD 230), the god who ruled as king of all Java from a palace on the Maendra mountains in Medangkamulan (now Mount Lawu). He needed a signal to summon the gods, and thus invented the gong. For more complex messages, he invented two other Gongs, thus forming the original gamelan set.[3]
In the palaces of Java are the oldest known ensembles, the Munggang and Kodokngorek gamelans, apparently from the 12th century. These formed the basis of a "loud style."
A different, "soft style" developed out of the kemanak tradition and is related to the traditions of singing Javanese poetry, in a manner which is often believed to be similar to performance of modern bedhaya dance. In the 17th century, these loud and soft styles mixed, and to a large extent the variety of modern gamelan styles of Bali, Java, and Sunda resulted from different ways of mixing these elements. Thus, despite the seeming diversity of styles, many of the same theoretical concepts, instruments, and techniques are shared between the styles.[4]
Information edited from Wikipedia:
A gamelan is a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesia typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs. The term refers more to the set of instruments than the players of those instruments. A gamelan as a set of instruments is a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are not interchangeable. The word "gamelan" comes from the Javanese word "gamel", meaning to strike or hammer, and the suffix "an", which makes the root a collective noun.
Gamelan is found in the Indonesian islands of Java, Madura, Bali, and Lombok (and other Sunda Islands), in a wide variety of ensemble sizes and formations. In Bali and Lombok today, and in Java through the 18th century, the term "gong" has been preferred to or synonymous with gamelan. Traditions of gamelan-like ensembles also exist in the Philippines, Malaysia and Suriname, sometimes due to emigration, historic trade, or diplomacy. More recently, through immigration and local enthusiasm, gamelan ensembles have become active throughout Europe, America, Asia, and Australia.
Gamelan music is built up in layers. At its centre is a basic melody (core melody) known as the balungan. Further layers, including singing in vocal pieces, elaborate upon this melody in certain ways, but the notes of each layer of music relate to the balungan, and generally coincide at the ends of phrases (called seleh in Javanese). There are also a set of instruments which delineate a colotomic structure, usually ending in the stroke of the largest gong.
The gamelan has an old and mysterious origin. Apparently it predates the Hindu-Buddhist culture that dominated Indonesia in its earliest records, and instead represents a native art form. The instruments developed into their current form during the Majapahit Empire.[1] In contrast to the heavy Indian influence in other art forms, the only obvious Indian influence in gamelan music is in the Javanese style of singing.[2]
In Javanese mythology, the gamelan was created by Sang Hyang Guru in Saka era 167 (c. AD 230), the god who ruled as king of all Java from a palace on the Maendra mountains in Medangkamulan (now Mount Lawu). He needed a signal to summon the gods, and thus invented the gong. For more complex messages, he invented two other Gongs, thus forming the original gamelan set.[3]
In the palaces of Java are the oldest known ensembles, the Munggang and Kodokngorek gamelans, apparently from the 12th century. These formed the basis of a "loud style."
A different, "soft style" developed out of the kemanak tradition and is related to the traditions of singing Javanese poetry, in a manner which is often believed to be similar to performance of modern bedhaya dance. In the 17th century, these loud and soft styles mixed, and to a large extent the variety of modern gamelan styles of Bali, Java, and Sunda resulted from different ways of mixing these elements. Thus, despite the seeming diversity of styles, many of the same theoretical concepts, instruments, and techniques are shared between the styles.[4]
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