Rocky Mountain Balinese Gamelan Festival

Presented by
MSU Denver Department of Music
Department of Music at Colorado College
Asian Studies Program at Colorado College
The Arts at CC
Visual and Performing Arts Department at UCCS
BASAbali Wiki
and Sanggar Manik Galih

With generous support from
The American Institute for Indonesian Studies, made possible through the Henry Luce Foundation
MSU Denver CLAS Deans Office
Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in Los Angeles
Gamelan Tunas Mekar
Logo by Gus Dark

The Rocky Mountain Balinese Gamelan Festival (RMBGF) will be the first of its kind in the United States. This four-day festival features an academic symposium (Moving Mountains: Sustainability and Balinese Arts) with invited keynote speakers David Harnish and I Made Lasmawan, a series of workshops (for beginning and advanced musicians and dancers on topics like composition, dance, vocal music, and technique), performances from gamelans along the Rocky Mountains, and two evening concerts (on Friday and Saturday) featuring Denver-based Gamelan Tunas Mekar and Krama Bali USA (made up of leading artists from Bali). This festival invites students, faculty, and interested community members from the Rocky Mountain region and beyond (including gamelans from Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and South Dakota) to join us for an epic weekend.

RMBGF Planning Committee

• Elizabeth McLean Macy, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, Department of Music, MSU Denver
• I Made Lasmawan, SKar, Lecturer and Gamelan Director, Department of Music, Colorado College
• I Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena, MA, Affiliate Faculty in Musicology, Department of Music, MSU Denver & Lecturer, Visual & Performing Arts, University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS)

Schedule of Events

Free Community Workshops!

Symposium: “Moving Mountains: Sustainability and the Arts in Bali”

“Moving Mountains: Sustainability and Balinese Arts” asks practitioners and scholars to broadly consider the place of sustainable practices in Balinese traditional and contemporary arts. As advocates of Balinese arts are increasingly vocalizing socio-political concerns and perspectives, we propose an exploration of sustainable models for artistic expression as a means to address shifting ideologies of academic inquiry.

“Moving Mountains: Sustainability and the Arts in Bali,” will be livestreamed as a Zoom webinar (9am-5pm MST). Click the link below to view the livestream.

Symposium Keynote Speakers

David Harnish

David Harnish, PhD, is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Music Department at University of San Diego whose research has centered on the islands of Lombok and Bali in Indonesia. He is author of Change and Identity in the Music Cultures of Lombok, Indonesia (Brill Press, 2021) and Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth and Cultural Politics at an Indonesian Festival (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), and co-authored Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Between Harmony and Discrimination: Negotiating Interreligious Relationships in Bali and Lombok (Brill Press, 2014). He is a double Fulbright and National Foundation Scholar and has consulted for the BBC, National Geographic, Mtv-Fulbright Awards, and the Smithsonian Institute. As a performer, he has recorded Indonesian, jazz, Indian and Tejano musics with five different labels. He directed Gamelan Wijaya Kusuma at Bowling Green State University, co-directed Gamelan Gunung Mas, and served as Academic Liaison for the Kyoto Prize Symposium.

 

I Made Lasmawan

I Made Lasmawan was born in the village of Bangah, in the Baturiti region of the regency of Tabanan, Bali in 1958. Strongly influenced by his family and involved in the arts since childhood, he entered KOKAR (Conservatory for Traditional Performing Arts) in Denpasar, Bali, and graduated in 1977. He continued his studies in 1978 at STSI (Indonesian College of the Arts) in Surakata (Solo), Central Java, and studied traditional Javanese music, receiving his Traditional Indonesian Music degree in 1983.

Pak Lasmawan has since traveled and performed throughout the world, including Belgium, France, England, Singapore, Japan, Canada, and Mexico. He is a prolific composer who taught Balinese music at STSI from 1983 until 1990, when he was invited to San Diego State University to teach Javanese and Balinese music. Living in Colorado since 1992 as Artist-in-Residence with Gamelan Tunas Mekar, Pak Lasmawan is a lecturer at Colorado College where he directs Balinese gamelan Tunjung Sari and teaches courses on Balinese and Indonesian music and Hindu epics in music. He also directs gamelan ensembles at the University of Colorado, Boulder, MSU Denver, the University of Wyoming in Laramie, UCCS, and throughout the Rocky Mountains, and has helped found over 25 gamelans in the United States. Pak Lasmawan plays a leading role in both Bali and the US as the founder and director of Sanggar Manik Galih, developing community gamelan groups for Balinese, diasporic Indonesians, and Westerners.

Festival Artist Bios

Gus Dark

Political cartoonist Gus Dark was born in Karangasem, Bali, on July 21, 1982. He studied graphic arts at the School of Modern Design in Yogyakarta. Known for his cartoon character “Mang Ogel” (named by his newspaper editor), Gus Dark was awarded the Superstar Supporter Award by the ROLE Foundation in 2013. The following year he joined the Jokowi Volunteer movement by sending his art to “Kolak Kotak.” His work has been featured in: the Caring for Waste Cartoon Exhibition Volume II in Singaraja; “Show Off” in the Surabaya Cartoon exhibition with the Indonesian Cartoon Community; BASAbali; and in Twitter Asia’s #CampaignsForChange.

ghOstMiSt

ghOstMiSt is a Balinese experimental duo that focuses on practices of reflexive improvisation toward phenomenological inquiries into confronting cultural contradictions. The project was founded by Dewa Ayu Eka Putri and Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena in the summer of 2020. Born out of a distanced practice during the COVID-19 pandemic (Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena in the United States and Dewa Ayu Eka Putri in Indonesia), ghOstMiSt releases monthly artistic pieces on social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram) to a Glocal audience: “We created the duo out of frustrations with exoticist interactions and a desire to confront cultural contradictions through performance. We intend to create artistic and ideological commotion through a general co-motion of contemporary Balinese artists. In doing so, we attempt to thwart the assumptions that Balineseness means being solely ethereal artists tied to Indigenous animist practices.”

Gamelan Tunas Mekar

Based in Denver, Colorado, Gamelan Tunas Mekar is a community ensemble under the direction of Balinese composer and Artist-in-Residence I Made Lasmawan and family. The group presents traditional and new music for Balinese gamelan at music festivals, schools, private events, local venues, specially produced concerts, and by special invitation both internationally and nationally. Modeled after typical village groups found throughout Bali, and learning by traditional methods, this community ensemble provides American audiences the rare opportunity to experience one of the world’s most fascinating cultures. Gamelan Tunas Mekar is sponsored in part by the University of Denver Lamont School of Music.

Krama Bali USA  

Krama Bali USA are a multigenerational collective of Balinese musicians, composers, and dancers, whose members live, teach, and perform in the United States. Many of the members are graduates of the School of the Performing Arts in Bali and Java.

Sraya MurtiKanti 

Born on October 3, 1996, Ni Nyoman Srayamurtikanti is a gamelan musician who is currently pursuing her career as a composer.  Sraya is the daughter of a natural artist, composer, and singer from Celuk Village, Sukawati, Gianyar, Bali, I Nyoman Suryadi.  She has studied Balinese gamelan since elementary school from her father, I Ketut Cater, I Made Subandi, and other teachers. Srayamurtikanti received her education in the arts, majoring in musical arts at SMKN 3 Sukawati (KOKAR/SMKI Bali) and the Indonesian Art Institute in Denpasar, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Indonesian Art Institute in Surakarta.  Sraya is also the head of Sanggar S’mara Murti which was originally founded by her father.  Sraya started composing since 2017 and has learned a lot from her father and several teachers inside and outside the institution. The works created by Sraya are based on tradition and innovation.

Sraya had the opportunity to represent Indonesia in the ASEAN Youth Camp event in Sagada, Philippines (2015); Student Exchange AIM Program at University Malaya (2016-2017); became a composer in the Komponis Kini – Tribute to Wayan Beratha event (2019); became a composer  in the National Cultural Parade (2019) representing Bali; being the 5th best composer at the Creative Music Competition – Taksapala Festival, Badung Bali; collaborating with a choreographer from Mexico (2021); being a composer in the SouthEast Asian Music Series Symposium (2021); and being a composer  at the Indonesian Composers Week (2021).  The compositions that have been created are: Kangkat (2017), SoS (2017), Love is God (2017), Rain-Ly (2017), Krepetan (2018), Selaka (2018), A Ketel (2018), Lango Wangi  (2019), Point Zero (2019), Candra Buana (2019), Speech Delay (2020), Solo (2020), Padma Semarandhana (2020), Gelung (2020), Resing Langit (2020), Garba (2020), Empowerment  (2021), Nyikzag (2021), Mulat Sarira (2021), Sraya Kanti (2021), Nuutsih (2021), Srengenge (2021), etc.

Sraya MurtiKanti Youtube Channel

Gamelan Merdu Kumala

Gamelan Merdu Kumala is an American gamelan, a community, and a grassroots organization based in Tujunga, California. Founded in 2014 by the artistic director, Hirotaka Inuzuka, this independent ensemble provides classes, workshops, and performances in order to bring musical fulfillment to individuals and transfigure that energy outward to communities to create a greater shared experience and unity.

Exploration of classical gambuh repertoire has been one of the group’s main activities. Whether performing traditional pieces on meter-long bamboo flutes called suling gambuh, or realizing its music with a different set of instruments, Gamelan Merdu Kumala aims to connect our musical activities to their surrounding environments creating music that is authentic to Southern California.