Gamelan Outside Indonesia - United States and Canada

United States and Canada

See also List of gamelan ensembles in the United States and American Gamelan

There are more than 100 gamelans in the United States. Gamelan music was introduced to the Western hemisphere at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. A Sundanese gamelan was imported as part of the Java Village exhibit and was acquired by the Field Museum of Natural History following the exposition. After the gamelan was restored in the late 1970s, it was used for instruction by a community arts organization, which gave its first performance in May 1978. The organization incorporated in 1980 as Friends of the Gamelan and continues to perform with two central Javanese gamelan sets that it has acquired.

Many schools, universities and other institutions in North America own sets of gamelan instruments. These gamelans are typically played by mixed-gender groups of students, a practice that is rare in Indonesia for religious reasons. Among the earliest such groups were Wesleyan University and UCLA. Established institutional gamelan ensembles in the U.S. include Gamelan Nyai Saraswati at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gamelan Burat Wangi and Gamelan Kyai Dorodasih at California Institute of the Arts, Gamelan Galak Tika at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gamelan Lila Muni at Eastman School of Music, Gamelan Semara Santi at Swarthmore College, Sekaa Gong Hanuman Agung at Florida State University, Gamelan Saraswati at University of Maryland, College Park, Gamelan Kembang Atangi at Loyola Marymount University, Gamelan Giri Kusuma at Pomona College, and the Javanese Court Gamelan, “Son of the Good Earth,” at Creighton University. A Gamelan is also owned by the University of North Texas called Bwana Kumala (Light of the World). The Acadia University School of Music in Nova Scotia, Canada, has access to a Gamelan Degung. Students can take an Intro to Gamelan course, or audition for the Gamelan Ensemble.

There are also professional gamelan ensembles. Gamelan Son of Lion is a group that focuses on newly-composed music by both the composer-members of the group and invited composers from around the world. Gamelan Kori Mas performs Balinese music on bamboo instruments in the San Francisco bay area. Gamelan X is based in Oakland.

Since 1979 a few gamelan ensembles have been organized as community arts organizations or clubs. The first Javanese community group was the Boston Village Gamelan in Massachusetts, and the first Balinese community group was Gamelan Sekar Jaya in California. Other community Balinese gamelan ensembles are Gamelan Mitra Kusuma in Washington, D.C., Gamelan Dharma Swara at the Indonesian Consulate in New York City, Space City Gamelan in Houston, the Lehigh Valley Gamelan in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Gamelan Tunas Mekar in Denver. Gamelan Sari Raras is an active Javanese ensemble in Berkeley, California; the name was given to the group by Widiyanto (aka Midiyanto), and the instruments, brought to the U.S. from Java in 1971, are named Kyai Udan Mas, or Venerable Golden Rain. The Indonesian Embassy in Washington, DC hosts another Javanese gamelan, as well as offering classes in Balinese gamelan and various styles of Indonesian dance.

Canada's oldest gamelan is the Toronto-based Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (with Sundanese degung instruments), founded in 1983. Another early gamelan ensemble is Kyai Madu Sari (Venerable Essence of Honey), donated by the Indonesian Government after the 1986 Expo in Vancouver, which resides since then at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. A gamelan gadhon, Alligator Joy, was commissioned from Pak Tentrem of Solo, Central Java and brought to Vancouver in 1990 and resides at the Western Front Artist Center. Both Vancouver-based ensembles are regularly used in performances by the Vancouver Community Gamelan.