Gamelan Anak Swarasanti


Gamelan Anak Swarasanti ("Child of Swarasanti") is an advanced group which has grown out of Gamelan Swarasanti and which is dedicated to taking the standard of playing to a higher level than is possible in a teaching group. Members of Gamelan Anak Swarasanti have been playing with Gamelan Swarasanti for between one and ten years. Gamelan Anak Swarasanti performs professionally throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in a wide variety of settings.



Gamelan Anak Swarasanti plays traditional and contemporary Balinese gamelan on both the sitting angklung and marching beleganjur sets of instruments. Our repertoire consists of the more advanced pieces played by Gamelan Swarasanti, collected over eight years from all over Bali, as well as new pieces composed for the gamelan in the US, and new extended arrangements of traditional pieces. In keeping with the spirit of Balinese gamelan, pieces are constantly evolving and permutating, with new pieces being created out of existing ones, and parts of old pieces being reused in new arrangements.



Gamelan Anak Swarasanti is especially interested in pushing the frontiers of gamelan, and introducing gamelan to new audiences. We have collaborated with several Bay Area ambient electronic musicians, including Charles Uzzell-Edwards, Rob Rayle, Randy Cone, and AndyW, and have pioneered gamelan in the San Francisco underground dance community, bringing gamelan music to raves and other contemporary music events in the San Francisco Bay Area and as far afield as the Sierra mountains. We are particularly interested in exploring the relationship between gamelan and the trance-states experienced in gamelan's native Bali, and similar experiences found in the dance community in the West, and we have found the rave community particularly receptive to these explorations.

Gamelan Anak Swarasanti's work in the rave community has been documented by the UCLA ethnomusicologist Gina Fatone, in her article for the online UCLA Journal of Music "ECHO". The article explores the relationship between the rave and gamelan experiences, noting similarities in contexts and music (fast, highly rhythmically complex, repetitive loops, and long, extended performance cycles, as well as other more subtle similarities) that help explain why the gamelan has been so quickly embraced by the San Francisco rave community. The article includes numerous Quicktime audio and video clips of various forms of electronic and gamelan music, including video footage of Gamelan Anak Swarasanti performing at raves. The article can be found at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/echo/volume3-issue1/fatone/. (Wait for the opening Quicktime movie to play before entering the main article).


Click on the picture to read about some of Gamelan Anak Swarasanti's amazing adventures....



Gamelan Anak Swarasanti is available for booking for traditional or contemporary performances, for weddings, parties, or any other event that warrants something out of the ordinary. For booking information, please contact Martin Randall at martinjrandall@hotmail.com.


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