2025 Program

This year we are excited to welcome three international guest artists:

Shoko Yamamuro

A leading Balinese dancer praised by The Boston Globe for her remarkable agility, Shoko Yamamuro regularly performs with California-based Gamelan Sekar Jaya and joins the ensemble to perform Topeng Keras. Before moving to the Bay Area, she was dance director for Gamelan Dharma Swara and has taught courses and workshops at Columbia, Wesleyan, Bard College, Colgate University, Bates College and MIT.

Dewa Ayu Eka Putri

Dewa Ayu is a Balinese artist-anthropologist and is currently a Lecturer of Dance at Grinnell College. She teaches courses on Balinese Dance and Performing Arts, specializing in traditional and contemporary dance styles. Putri also maintains her position as dance instructor at the critically acclaimed arts organization, Sanggar Cudamani, from Pengosekan, Bali, Indonesia. She received her B.A. from Universitas Udayana in cultural anthropology and is a leading figure in women’s gamelan ensembles all around Bali. Born into a family of artists, Dewa Ayu is internationally known for her collaborations of traditional and contemporary works in theater, music, and dance.

I Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena

Putu Tangkas is an Indonesian artist-scholar serving as Assistant Professor of Music (Performance and Creativity) at Grinnell College, where he directs the Balinese Sound Ensemble and teaches courses on Heavy Metal Music, Electronic Music, and Noise and Activism. He also is a founding member of Balinese Experimental duo, ghOstMiSt, with dancer-anthropologist, Dewa Ayu Eka Putri; PAK Yeh (free-improvisation trio) from Denver, Colorado; and T.A.T.W.D. (improvised noise-metal trio) from Urbana, Illinois.

---Our Director---

I Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka, known as Ryan, is originally from Tabanan, and grew up in Ubud, Bali. Since he was young, he studied Balinese gamelan music, culminating in a B.A. (2019) and M.A. (2022) from the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Denpasar. He is also a member of Cudamani, a well-known performing arts group based in Pengosekan, Ubud. As a Balinese musician, teacher, and composer, he has taught and composed actively all over the island and toured abroad several times. Some composition highlights are “Legong Swatika” for Cudamani's 2021 US East Coast Tour and “Anglelana Lamuk” for the Bali Arts Festival in 2022. After moving to Vancouver for UBC's Andrew Fellowship artist residency, he has composed for Gamelan Gita Asmara, Gamelan Bike Bike, as well as a saxophone quartet piece for the Orpheus Quartet and several pieces for chamber ensembles. Ryan is currently completing his DMA in Music Composition at the UBC School of Music, focusing on applying Balinese compositional techniques to Western instruments and incorporating Western instruments into gamelan ensembles.

---Our Founder---

Michael Tenzer is a Professor of Ethnomusicology at the UBC School of Music. Before moving to Vancouver he co-founded the thriving California Bay Area group Gamelan Sekar Jaya. In 1996, he moved to Vancouver and founded Gamelan Gita Asmara. In the 1980s-2000s, he composed several works for Balinese Gamelan that incorporated the rhythmic language of Karnatak (South Indian) music. Tonight the earliest of these compositions—Banyuari—will be performed once again after a long time. Michael's award-winning writings on Balinese gamelan music are widely recognised as highly significant scholarly works.

GGA's members this year are:

Jack Adams, Bruce Bagemihl, Wendy Chen, Jimuel Dave Dagta, Everley Frances-Eugenia, Meris Goodman, Elena Hammel, Nirmal Kaur, Iljung (LJ) Kim, Agung Mario, Colin McDonald, Risa Murakami, I Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka, Paul Patko, Eshantha Peiris, Shruti Ramani, Ibrahim Saker, John Scott, Oscar Smith, Michael Tenzer, Baiquan (BQ) Wang, Joshua Young

Kebyar Susun (1958) 7'

by I Ketut Merdana (c.1912-1965)

This piece’s composer, Ketut Merdana, was born in the coffee-growing village of Kedis Kaja in Northwestern Bali. He led his village’s gamelan group to great success by participating in many of the competitions that cultivated the widespread popularity of this genre—kebyar. Kebyar refers to the explosive, jagged, fragmented rhythms that you’ll hear at the opening of this piece. Merdana was unfortunately killed during the 1965 communist genocides throughout Indonesia, but his music has lived on due to its great popularity and the work of an ethnomusicologist who recorded Merdana’s compositions less than a year before these tragic events. This piece became famous throughout Southern Bali through the teacher and composer I Wayan Gandra.

Topeng Keras 4'30"

An essential part of traditional Balinese-Hindu ceremonies is the dancing of topeng. Topeng are masks worn by a dancer and come in various forms and characters. Usually danced first during the topeng section of a performance, Topeng Keras depicts a royal character, who portrays his strength, charisma, and status through his gestures. While the piece centres around one melodic cycle, variety is generated through the close communication of the dancer and drummer. The dancer signals through hand and shoulder movements when a rhythmic interruption to the cycle should happen. The drummer and musicians then react by getting loud, and then play a special rhythm that aligns with the dancer’s foot movement.

Banyuari (1992) 15'

by Michael Tenzer (1957-)

Meaning “Little brother of the river”, the 1992 composition Banyuari is one of our founder’s earliest forays into translating South-Indian compositional techniques onto Balinese instruments. Featured several times in this piece, you will hear the rhythmically contracting processes of a Karnatak korvai (rhythmic composition) that Michael learnt while studying the mridangam drum in Madras in the late 1980s. The korvai first appears in the drums, then it gets orchestrated in the gong-row and metallophone instruments. Just before the end of the piece, in the climax, we all play it together as fast as we can.

Topeng Tua (arranged for Gamelan Semaradana) (2025) 9'

by I Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka (1997-)

Another topeng dance that is in the standard sequence during a Balinese ceremony is topeng tua, literally meaning “old mask”. The character portrayed here is an old, nostalgic king. The music slows to mimic his hobbling yet stately movements, and speeds up when the king is excited by remembering his former glory. Sometimes he picks a flea out of his long, grey hair, startled by how decrepit he has become. It will be danced tonight by guest artist Shoko Yamamuro, who specialises in this dance style. This arrangement of topeng tua was created just this year by our director, Ryan, who cleverly incorporates the extra pitches of our seven-tone gamelan Semaradana, giving the piece a new feeling.

Longitude I (for gangsa Semaradana and saxophone) (2025) 6'

by I Putu Swaryandana Ichi Oka (1997-)

Longitude is an imaginary north-south line that divides Earth's east and west hemispheres. These arbitrary reference points have created artificial ideas about what is “Eastern” and “Western”, even though human ideas never clearly follow such rigid distinctions. In Longitude 1, I try to blur these lines by using Balinese and Western instruments, incorporating Balinese idiomatic motifs, harmonies, rhythms, and the idea of "rasa", or feeling, a certain emotional aspect integral to Balinese music, but in a contemporary form. This combination of elements in my music provides the musicians with certain challenges they might not usually face. On the other hand, by using notation instead of the oral compositional method that I am accustomed to, I likewise have learned new ways of manipulating musical ideas.

[program note by Putu Swaryandana]

Palawakya (c.1925) 15'

Imagine you’re sitting in a North Balinese food stall night market, you’re sweaty after working the day in the fields. At the centre of attention is a singer, who performs old language Hindu poetry with an idiosyncratic contoured lilt while accompanying themselves on the trompong gong-row instrument positioned out in front of the gamelan. After each verse, the rest of the ensemble interjects with short interludes of classical melodies. It’s a competition between two groups, to see who can recreate this poetry more artfully.

This is the origin story of Palawakya, an early kebyar piece with a unique feature: The dancer is also, simultaneously, a player and a singer. Our fantastic guest artist Ayu Eka will recreate for you these ancient poems, known as kekawin, while accompanying herself on the trompong.

Program notes by Oscar Smith, March 2025

Photo credit: via https://edwardherbst.net/