New Zealand gamelan

History#

In May 1974 the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington presented the NZBC Orchestra (now the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) with a set of gongs. They were first played in November of that year after the composer Jack Body, who had spent time in Indonesia in the early 1970s, wrote a piece Resonance Music for guitar and six percussionists. Also in 1974 Allan Thomas, who became a lecturer in music at Victoria University of Wellington, returned to New Zealand bringing an antique gamelan orchestra with him. He had studied gamelan at the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam and lived in Cirebon, in north-west Java. Another early performance of gamelan was at the 1976 South Pacific Festival of Arts in Rotorua. In 1999 Thomas and Body organised the BEAT! Festival in Wellington to mark the 25th anniversary of gamelan in New Zealand. He composed for the university’s Gamelan Padhang Moncar (Javanese style gamelan orchestra) and has collaborated with several composers including Australian composer Paul Grabowsky on a piece called The Theft of Sita (2000) and Jack Body. As at 2021 Victoria has two gamelan: the Gamelan Padhang Moncar and the Gamelan Taniwha Jaya. The latter is a Balinese Gong Kebyar which was purchased by Gareth Farr in 2003. Other gamelan orchestras were set up in Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch by the late 1990s. By 2008 there were Central Javanese gamelan at the University of Otago, Victoria University and in Auckland, gamelan gong kebyar at the University of Canterbury and Massey University and Cirebon gamelan at Victoria; there were gamelan tutors at four universities: Otago, Canterbury, Massey and Auckland. Gamelan was introduced to the University of Otago in 1995 by Professor Henry Johnson and the first set of bronze instruments from Central Java arrived in 1996. In Christchurch a Balinese Gong Kebyar was established at the University of Canterbury in 1995 by Elaine Dobson, who composed for the group.

Influence on New Zealand composers#

Gamelan has inspired a number of New Zealand composers who have either written for gamelan or incorporated gamelan into their music. Gareth Farr has used gamelan instruments or composed for non-gamelan instruments to be played in a gamelan-like way in compositions such as Siteran (1990) for Javanese gamelan and harp, Kebyar Moncar (1993) for Victoria’s gamelan, Tabuh Pacific (1995) for Balinese gamelan and orchestra, From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs (1996) for orchestra and the piano piece Sepuluh Jari (1996). After Bach for massed violas and gamelan was commissioned for the 2001 International Viola Congress held in Wellington. Wayan Yudane has collaborated with both Body and Farr. Yudane and Farr’s Spinning Mountain (2007) is a Balinese inspired story for children and their families using instruments from the gamelan gong kebyar and Western instruments. Yudane and Body composed Paradise Regained (1984) for premade (Balinese metallophone) and piano for Indonesian pianist Ananda Sukarlan. Other composers influenced by gamelan are Nigel Keay, John Rimmer, Miranda Adams, Elaine Dobson and James Instone.

See also#

• Gamelan outside Indonesia

External links#

• Victoria University’s Gamelan Padhang Moncar in performance in 2004 on Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
• History and chronology of gamelan in Wellington at Gamelan, Wellington, New Zealand website
• List of gamelan New Zealand compositions at Gamelan, Wellington, New Zealand website