UW Gamelan Ensemble

On the island of Bali, Indonesia the idea of community and the spirit of interaction are highly valued and extend to music-making. Being an aural/oral tradition, repertoire—from ritual pieces to modern compositions, instrumental or dance—is learned through imitation and repetition, by listening and watching (i.e., without the use of notation). Students experience this communal process of creating a unified sound on a gamelan semara dana (one of several types of gamelan found in Bali) consisting of gongs, metallophones, drums, and flutes. This end-of-term concert includes guest musicians and dancers.