Britons strike up love affair with sounds of Javanese gamelan

By Helly Minarti

LONDON (JP): Peter Smith arranged rice-cakes, possibly bought in London's Chinatown, and colorful flowers in a bamboo basket. He put them in front of the gong at the back of a Javanese gamelan set.

Smith was making the final preparation for a performance of Island Hopping - a concert of Javanese and Balinese gamelan instruments at Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London. The show featured The South Bank Gamelan Players and Lila Cita - a Javanese and Balinese gamelan group respectively - whose members are Londoners.

"It's a lorotan," whispered Smith. Lorotan is a Javanese word that means "offering to fend off bad luck". "We're going to play a sacred piece called Gadhung Mlathi, he explained the reason.

It is a piece rarely performed and then only with special offerings to the Queen of the South Seas.

"It's an old composition, created about 200 years ago, but very modern at the same time. It's such a nice piece, unique, nothing like it. Quite remarkable," said Smith, the acting artistic director of The South Bank Gamelan Players, who spent three years studying the art of Karawitan (Javanese music) in STSI Surakarta (Academy of Indonesian Performing Arts) in Solo.

The South Bank Gamelan Players is only one of around 50 gamelan groups scattered across Britain. Ninety four percent are Javanese gamelan while the rest vary from Sundanese to Balinese.

"The trend is exploding," confirmed Andy Channing - the artistic director of Lila Cita - a Balinese gong kebyar group which also performed that night.

"Thirteen years ago when I first started (playing gamelan), there were only a few gamelan in Britain, mostly in universities such as Oxford, York or Durham," said Channing, who founded Lila Cita in 1998.

Now, that early enthusiasm in the academic world has trickled down to big arts centers such as South Bank Center (SBC), which later introduced gamelan to community organizations and school- children.

The Javanese gamelan set housed in SBC was a gift from Indonesia in 1988. SBC has been giving gamelan courses ever since.

"We have at least nine groups playing during weekdays and three to five school groups on the weekend," said Smith, who also teaches at SBC and several universities including Oxford.

Besides regular courses, SBC occasionally organizes workshops where people can have a "gamelan taster class" before they decide to enroll in the course.

"It was very exciting. I tried everything except the big gong, since many of us queued for it," said Shizuka Yokomizo, who tried a two-hour gamelan taster workshop.

Semi-professional

The group that performed last April is semi-professional and belongs to the advanced class.

"Most are playing as a hobby, only five or six make a living by teaching or playing gamelan. But it's a serious hobby since many of them - at least 16 of 21 - have studied gamelan either in Solo or Yogya for a year," explained Smith.

The SBC has a close link with STSI Surakarta where some of its good players, including Smith, have been benefiting from Darmasiswa - a scholarship from Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture for foreigners to study gamelan in Solo.

Some have extended their abilities by learning other styles. Bradley Smith, who works for a computer company, also learned Banyumasan style in addition to the classic Solo style.

It's very different. The drumming is more like Sundanese and it's more folk music. For me they're a livelier and happier tunes," he said.

Smith keeps coming back to Banyumas to hone his musical skills. "I have friends there now. We're traveling around to see concerts. And they always ask me to play on such occasions. It's a scary thing - but very useful. Playing here in the South Bank is nothing compared to that," said, Smith who also founded a calung group - another form of Banyumasan music.

A large number of musicians started to play gamelan at university. Robert Campion of SBC and Valerie Gunn of Lila Cita are among that group.

"I saw people playing while I studied in Durnham University and I really like it, especially after I visited Solo," said Campion, now working both as composer and accountant.

Meanwhile, Gunn's first encounter with gamelan angklung (a type of Balinese gamelan) was when she studied at Dartington University in Devon. Now she joins Lila Cita to play gong kebyar while working as a sound engineer.

"I can't wait to visit Bali," said Gunn who has been playing for almost seven years. "It's always the time-money problem. I don't want to go only for two weeks. I'd like to stay at least for a year," she said.

Although, encouraging students to compose gamelan pieces, SBC concentrates more on teaching the traditional style. "For me the original way of playing Javanese gamelan is much more shocking, liberating and distinct than any fusion influenced by western music," said Peter Smith who first studied western music at York University.

"There's nowhere else where so many people can play in one group organically without preconception or structure, in the way of western composition. There's no conductor; very egalitarian. Twenty people can just sit and create the music," said Smith.

However, for some people, mastering the traditional style is only a first step to creating their own composition, be it traditional or contemporary.

Andy Channing, for instance, in addition to playing traditional music for two Balinese gamelan groups, also writes new (modern) pieces for gamelan. He even founded a special group for this purpose, Alpha Betha, which recently released their first CD.

Pop music

Furthermore, Channing has introduced gamelan to other venues -- this time more into pop music. Joining and funding various groups, including SBC, Channing has played in Edinburgh Festival, Glastonbury Festival (the biggest pop festival in Britain) and in London's clubbing scene, such as at the once hip Ministry of Sound.

"It was a modern composition by an American composer for Mark Morris (a reputable American choreographer) in Edinburgh and with a jazz band in a club," said Channing.

Both SBC and Lila Cita rehearse once a week, and more frequently when approaching a big show like the one in April that was more an emotional anniversary.

"Ten years ago, we held a full week Island to Island event -- a festival of Indonesian music where we invited more than 50 musicians from STSI Solo to perform here," said Peter Smith.

Gamelan certainly continues to be cherished in Britain. If there is one thing lacking, it is the absence of an Artist-in- Residence for teaching gamelan.

"We used to have someone attached to the Indonesian embassy for Javanese gamelan. But it has stopped since krismon (monetary crisis)," said Smith. The SBC can't afford to replace such facility.

Channing would also like to have a Balinese master for his Lila Cita, but like SBC, can't afford to invite one. So far though, he feels the need.

"What I do is to encourage the members to visit Bali, learn the music and come back with more knowledge," he said. For the future, founding a British Gamelan Foundation is being considered, though it is unlikely to happen soon.

"Hopefully through such charity we can invite an Artist-in- Residence who can teach throughout Britain," said Smith.

Britain has become one of the gamelan centers outside Indonesia besides other countries in Europe and America. "London is probably the only city outside Indonesia or even Jakarta where people can play many kinds of gamelan types," claimed Smith.

Interest is definitely growing, despite some prevailing problems. "We even sent a British gamelan teacher to Paris recently since they would like to set up a group similar to the one we have in SBC," said Smith, proudly. "So, Indonesia is like our grandparents, and we are sort of the "parents" here who send off people. Paris has just sent their first player to learn gamelan in Java," added Smith.