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Contemporary Music for Javanese and Sundanese Gamelan

Sunday May 20, 2012, 8:00 pm

Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, SFU Woodward’s – Wong Theatre

Part of Gong! The Gamelan Festival

Presented by SFUW and Vancouver Community Gamelan Society

Featuring Gamelan Alligator Joy, and Gamelan Si Pawit with choreography

by Henry Daniel

As part of Vancouver’s 2^nd annual gamelan festival, Gamelan Alligator Joy (the chamber gamelan alter-ego of Gamelan Madu Sari) and Vancouver Community College’s Gamelan Si Pawit will present a joint concert of new music and dance in collaboration with SFU dance professor/choreographer Henry Daniel and his group Full Performing Bodies. Each gamelan ensemble will perform original compositions by prominent composers in their group. Also, marking the centenary of John Cage’s birth, Gamelan Si Pawit will perform Cage’s “Haikai”, a 20-minute work originally commissioned in the 1980s by Jon Siddall for Toronto’s Evergreen Club Gamelan, performed again on those very instruments by Siddall’s Vancouver group, with Daniel’s choreography taking it to another dimension.

There will be premieres of new pieces by Siddall and Damon Schwabach-Morris for the gamelan degung ensemble and by Sutrisno Hartana for Alligator Joy. To complete Alligator Joy’s program, Mark Parlett and Michael O’Neill are arranging and expanding works that were premiered last year on SFU’s Gamelan Madusari. O’Neill’s 20-minute work “Beledrone”, combining his interest in gamelan and highland pipes, features two pipers and vocalists Beverly Dobrinsky and Carmen Rosen of Zeellia; Parlett’s piece “Ismoyo in Samsara” features vocalist DB Boyko. Altogether the concert will offer a stimulating cross-cultural experience for fans of gamelan, new music and contemporary dance. Tasty Indonesian food will also be for sale.

Tickets $15/$12 students & seniors at Banyen and Highlife, online at sfuwoodwards.ca or at the door (cash only)

Click the image above or go to Caravan World Rhythms for more information.

This concert is made possible with support from the City of Vancouver, the Province of BC, and the Consulate-General of the Republic of Indonesia in Vancouver.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the first International Gamelan Festival, Vancouver’s three Indonesian gamelans will present three showcase concerts, plus a variety of free workshops and delicious food! Launching the festival on Friday evening, Gamelan Gita Asmara features twenty-five musicians performing on the spectacular full gamelan semaradana, a shimmering orchestra of gongs, keyed instruments, flutes, and drums. The ensemble will feature four special guest dancers, including some renowned as among the best of Bali. The combined effect of the music, dance, instruments and costumes is dazzling.

Saturday’s performance will feature one of the most popular Javanese shadow-puppet plays in the Ramayana cycle, Anoman the Envoy, performed by the American dalang (puppeteer) Matthew Cohen, in collaboration with Gamelan Madu Sari’s leader Sutrisno Hartana. An exciting visual and aural journey for the whole family to experience! Opening for the performance will be music for zither and bamboo ring flute by Toronto’s Sunda Duo: Andrew Timar and Bill Parsons. Seattle’s Jessika Kenney adds dreamy, emotion-filled vocals to the Sundanese songs.

For Sunday’s Matinee (3pm) performance, Gamelan Madu Sari and Gamelan Si Pawit present a program of new music for Javanese and Sundanese gamelan, featuring an arrangement of Terry Riley’s famous minimalist benchmark In C and premieres of compositions by Jon Siddall, Michael O’Neill (for pipers and gamelan) and Mark Parlett.

Click the image above or go to Caravan World Rhythms for more information.