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New Zealand music featured at gamelan festival
New works for gamelan by New Zealand composers attracted a large, responsive audience when they were performed by Wellington gamelan musicians at the 12th Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival in Indonesia in July.
Members of two gamelan ensembles, Gamelan Padhang Moncar and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, both based at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, travelled to the annual festival with the support of a $5000 grant from Creative New Zealand.
One of three overseas groups performing in the festival, the New Zealand group consisted of 17 musicians ranging from university students to those who have played with the group for more than 20 years. The two other groups were from Malaysia and Canada.
Group manager Jack Body says that for some of the musicians, it was their first visit to Indonesia. "The trip provided an opportunity to hear traditional gamelan performed by experts and put contemporary gamelan in the context of its origins."
Nine new compositions
The gamelan festival was established in 1995 to bring together gamelan lovers from Indonesia and around the world. Featuring contemporary forms of gamelan music, this year's festival involved five nights of performances, including two nights of performances by local youth gamelan groups.
The New Zealand group performed nine new compositions by New Zealand composers, with a number of the pieces combining wind instruments (clarinet, flute and baritone saxophone) with the gamelan.
The composers were Gareth Farr, Jack Body, Judith Exley, Anton Killin and Chris Watson, along with Wayan Yudane, a Balinese living in Wellington, and Budi Putra, a Javanese living in Wellington. Budi Putra, who directs Gamelan Padhang Moncar, also led the tour to Indonesia.
An audience favourite was Jack Body's arrangement of a number of Polish dances for Javanese gamelan and two clarinets and baritone saxophone.
Collaboration with Indonesian artists
A feature of the group's festival performance was its collaboration with three renowned Indonesian guest artists. Transgender dancer Didik Nini Thowok performed the traditional Māori story of Rona and the Moon to music composed by Gareth Farr for both Javanese and Balinese gamelan. They were accompanied by vocalists Waldjinah and Salmet Gundono.
Gamelan Padhang Moncar first participated in the festival in 2002 and toured Indonesia for five weeks in 1995. On this trip, it also performed in Jakarta for a diplomatic function, for a village function near Surakarta, and at Studio Mendut near Borobudur.
