GAMELAN KUSUMA LARAS is Heading to ROULETTE

Since its formation over 30 years ago, Gamelan Kusuma Laras has entranced American and Indonesian audiences with its mesmerizing renditions of traditional Javanese performances on instruments created for the Indonesian Pavilion at the 1964-5 World's Fair. This NYC-based classical Javanese gamelan orchestra, comprised of Americans and Indonesians, is under the direction of the renowned I. M. Harjito. A master of all the Javanese gamelan instruments, he is most famous for his superb rebab and gendèr playing. In this program, the orchestra will be joined by several special guests who graduated from Indonesia's state conservatory for the traditional performing arts in Surakarta: Darsono Hadiraharjo, a leading young Javanese gamelan player of his generation; the captivating Javanese singer Heni Savitri, who performs widely with many gamelan ensembles in the US and Indonesia; and dancer Anang Totok Dwiantoro, who is known for his mastery of the strong male style of Central Javanese court dance.

Gamelan is a Javanese/Indonesian word for ensemble or orchestra. Traditionally, the Javanese gamelan was the basis of all Javanese performing arts: its music was essential to dance and theater everywhere, from the humblest village to the imposing, marble-floored pavilions of the royal courts. Most of the instruments are made from cast bronze, and are either metallophones or hanging gongs (gong, kempul) and racked gongs (bonang, kenong), which look like small gongs lying on their backs. Although Western-style popular music and pop gamelan are encroaching substantially on its domain, classical gamelan music can still be heard at wedding ceremonies, circumcisions, village cleansings, and accompanying the all-night shadow play. Gamelan music exists in many regional styles; the music presented in this concert is in the style of the Central Javanese court city, Solo (Surakarta).

The dance performed in this program is Gathotkaca Gandrung, a popular dance in the Solo (Surakarta) style. This dance depicts Gathotkaca, a beloved hero from the Hindu-Javanese Mahabharata epic, dressing himself and dreaming of the object of his affections, Pregiwa, the daughter of Arjuna. Gathotkaca possesses magical powers which enable him to fly; he is a fierce warrior, but never uses a weapon in battle. The dance is in the gagah style, a forceful and powerful male style, used for the roles of strongly built kasatriyas (soldiers and generals).

The Artists

Gamelan Kusuma Laras ("Flowering Harmony") has captivated audiences around the US and in Indonesia with its authentic performances of music from the classical repertoire of the courts of Central Java. The ensemble has been a treasure of the New York City cultural scene since its inception in 1983. Since then it has performed at Asia Society, Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, Symphony Space, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Bard College, Vassar College, Wesleyan University, Princeton University, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Yogyakarta International Gamelan Festival, among others.

I.M. Harjito, the gamelan's artistic director, is one of the finest Javanese musicians practicing today. He is a graduate of Indonesia's state conservatory for the traditional performing arts, where he worked closely with one of the major figures of 20th-century Javanese music, R. Ng. Martopangrawit. Harjito has directed gamelan ensembles in Indonesia, the United States, Canada, and Australia. He is also a composer of traditional and innovative works for gamelan and other instruments. For the past 33 years he has been a faculty member at Wesleyan University. Although he is a master of all the Javanese gamelan instruments, he is most famous for his superb rebab and gendèr playing. He is assisted by co-directors Anne Stebinger and Jon Rea, American musicians who have studied and performed classical Javanese music extensively in Java and the US.

Guest Artists:

Darsano Hadiraharjo, a prominent Javanese musician renowned for his improvisational virtuosity on several instruments, is from a prominent family of music and theatre traditions in Central Java, Indonesia. He grew up in a small village outside the court city of Surakarta, a major center for the performing arts, and studied karawitan, the classical genre of music played on a gamelan, and learned the revered art of shadow puppetry primarily from his father and other relatives. He graduated in 2002 from the Institute Seni Indonesia, a national conservatory of the arts where he has taught. He serves as the main drummer for dances performed at the royal court of Mangkunegaran, Surakarta, and is a regularly featured musician at shadow puppet theatre performances in surrounding villages. He first performed abroad with the original troupe for Robert Wilson's I La Galigo, which premiered in Singapore in 2004. Since then, he has traveled widely as a teacher and performer of music as well as a puppet master (dhalang) in Europe, the US, and Asia.

Heni Savitri began to study sindhènan (Javanese singing with gamelan) in 2002. In 2003, she won the competition for best singer in her native district of Wonogiri, Central Java. She entered the Performing Arts Conservatory in Surakarta in 2004, and began representing the institution in competitions the following year as well as performing in shadow plays. Upon enrolling in Indonesia's state conservatory for the traditional performing arts in Surakarta, she was selected as the singer for many recordings of new faculty compositions and traditional works, representing the academy in the 2008 international vocal competition in Jakarta.

Anang Totok Dwiantoro graduated from STSI, Indonesia's state conservatory for the traditional performing arts in Surakarta, Central Java. He lives in Washington, DC, where he is director and founder of a dance troupe. He has performed all over the US, both with his troupe and as a solo artist.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2019

8:00 PM

ROULETTE, 509 Atlantic Avenue at 3rd Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn

Tickets: $30; students, seniors $26, Box office (917) 267-0363

Info & tickets: https://www.robertbrowningassociates.com/19-20-gamelan-kusuma-laras.html