Gamelan festival opens

Gamelan festival opens

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Vice President Try Sutrisno opened an international gamelan festival at the Prambanan temple compound yesterday.

Fifteen groups from seven countries are taking part in the festival to show the global reach of the traditional Javanese percussion orchestra. Besides host Indonesia, there are gamelan groups from Japan, the United States, Britain, Germany, France and New Zealand. The Indonesian participants come from Denpasar, Bali, and Surabaya, Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Banyumas and Banyuwangi in Java.

Sri Hastanto, the head of the festival committee, said gamelan was introduced outside Indonesia as far back as 1580, when Sir Francis Drake took a set back to Europe. Sir Stamford Raffles further introduced gamelan to the world in the early 19th century.

Sri Hastanto said a number of people from Asia and African countries had expressed interest in taking part in the festival, but could not make it here on time.

The American orchestra is the South Bank Center Youth Gamelan while the two Japanese orchestras are Sekar Djepun and Kodomo No Shiro, while France is represented by a team from the Galerie Conore. Most of the gamelan players will be wearing traditional Javanese garb.

The festival will be closed on Sunday by Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman. (har)