GAMELAN GALAK
TIKA
Gamelan Galak Tika
presents WORLD PREMIERES for Balinese
Gamelan by American composers and Traditional Music and Dance of
Bali Contact: MIT Concerts Office
Cambridge, MA (April 8 2002) -- The Boston area's acclaimed Balinese music and dance
ensemble, Gamelan Galak
Tika, presents a beautiful melding of
traditional Balinese music and dance with new American works on Friday, April 19, 2002 at 8 pm in MIT's Kresge
Auditorium, 70 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. Admission is $7 for
adults, $3 for students, and free with MIT I.D. and for children under
12. New England's ground-breaking gamelan again
offers world premieres of new American works for gamelan by ensemble members
Joshua Penman, Danielle Smith, and Christine Southworth. Also featured
will be works by member Dan Schmidt and director Evan Ziporyn. These
intimate collaborations will amaze and enlighten, and are a testament to the
ensemble's extraordinary ability to discover new musical spirit within the
traditional instruments. As with previous GGT premieres of "Tire Fire" and
"Amok!", this concert promises a new
sound experience for even the most
veteran gamelan listeners, and is not to be missed. A few words from the composers about our new
works: JOSHUA PENMAN about "Crazy Ball of
Yarn": A lot of Balinese music was written specifically
to accompany dance. So when I wrote a piece for gamelan, I tried to
incorporate what the idea of "dance music" means to me... The title comes
from a complicated series of mishearings and misunderstandings, which turns out
to be quite appropriate, as the piece itself deals with what happens during an
imperfect process of translation. DAN SCHMIDT about "A Dangerous
Thing": What speaks to
me most in Balinese music is a sense of rhythmic joy, two dozen musicians
hurtling through time in unison. "A Dangerous Thing" takes that rhythmic
sense and explores it in ways rather alien to the traditional repertoire of
Bali. DANIELLE SMITH about "Mandi Pagi Pergi Ke
Pasar": My piece: it's
an ordinary day. Wake up and go about your business. CHRISTINE SOUTHWORTH about "Flying Goldfish
Flower": For me the real magic in Balinese music is in playing it,
feeling it and having it develop within me to a point of not really having to
think about it at all any more. "Flying Goldfish Flower" is about this,
and also about learning Balinese music, having it not make any sense at all at
first, but then evolving within me to a point of feeling completely
natural. Gamelan Galak Tika is the Boston area's first
Balinese gamelan. A community ensemble in residence at MIT, GGT was founded in
September 1993 for the purpose of studying and performing both traditional and
modern Balinese music and dance, as well as to develop new works in
collaboration with Balinese and American artists. For more information
about this or other Gamelan Galak Tika events, please visit <http://web.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/galak-tika/www>
or contact us via email.
Evan Ziporyn, Director
MIT Music
and Theatre Arts
(617) 452-2302
Rm 4-246, 77 Massachusetts
Avenue
http://web.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/galak-tika/www
Cambridge, MA
02139
(617) 253-2826