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Music for tolerance
Gamelan orchestra players (from left to right) Sekar Setyaningrum, Desyana Wulani Putri and Sari Utami Haryaningtyas
Gamelan orchestra players (from left to right) Sekar Setyaningrum, Desyana Wulani Putri and Sari Utami Haryaningtyas. (JP/Duncan Graham) (from left to right) Sekar Setyaningrum, Desyana Wulani Putri and Sari Utami Haryaningtyas. (JP/Duncan Graham)
Gamelan orchestra players (from left to right) Sekar Setyaningrum, Desyana Wulani Putri and Sari Utami Haryaningtyas. (JP/Duncan Graham)
The 18th annual International Gamelan Festival opened in Yogyakarta on Saturday night with a performance by orchestras from Indonesia, the US and Singapore.
On Sunday, players from New Zealand and Yogyakarta will hit the gongs and strike the metalophones. It is the first time that Plaza Ngasem, the refurbished traditional bird market with capacity for 300 people, has been used for a public event.
'The theme this year is 'ready and must be married',' said architect and organizer Sari Utami Haryaningtyas, who has been involved with the festival for the past 12 years.
'Although Yogyakarta is the heart of Javanese culture, many students come here from across the country and do not know or understand the gamelan.
'I fell in love with it when I was a child and learned how to play at school. We used to hear gamelan on the radio all the time ' now it's rare.'
Her fellow volunteer, musician and dancer Desyana Wulani Putri, is the daughter of the late Sapto Rahargo, the famous Javanese musician who founded the festival.
'My father used to say that the spirit of the gamelan is not an object, but unity,' she said.
'The instruments are just the medium. What we do and create together is important.'
Academic researcher Sekar Setyaningrum, who has been helping set up the festival for 13 years, said gamelan players had to listen to each other and work as a team.
'There are no individual stars and no director,' she said. 'We have to be tolerant. Everyone is equal. The spirit of the gamelan should be in our daily lives, in our blood and as a nation.
'I'm not worried about foreigners stealing our music. It can't be separated from Indonesian culture and that's not easily understood.'
Performances start at 7:30 p.m. and entry is free. 'We don't want sponsors telling us what to do,' said Sari. 'This is a community event with new works being performed.'
There are now gamelan orchestras active in at least 35 countries overseas. Some, like the New Zealand School of Music's two groups, Balinese and Javanese, are supported by universities and Indonesian embassies keen to promote indigenous culture.
Budi S Putra, director of Gamelan Padhang Moncar, said the group has been in New Zealand for 16 years. He said this was the fourth time that they had performed in Indonesia. He rejected the idea that foreigners playing gamelan in Java was like taking apple pie to Americans.
'I always tell audiences that we come here because we love the culture,' he said. 'But I also tell them not to ignore their own music, but to keep it alive.'
A New Zealand ethnomusicologist professor, Jack Body, who studied in Yogyakarta as a young man, said the gamelan was being played in at least 35 countries overseas with hundreds of orchestras in the US alone.
'No self-respecting campus would be without a gamelan,' he said. 'Pak Sapto helped make it international because he was such a good networker.'
Musicians from Malaysia, the Netherlands, Japan, France, Australia and the UK have attended past festivals, but the economic crisis in Europe and the proximity to the fasting month of Ramadhan has restricted travel.
