Join Buffalo's beginner Balinese gamelan music program! Six weeks of fun community oriented gamelan music classes! We will discuss and practice basic Balinese gamelan skills and methods in an inclusive and fun environment. Sessions are led in a Balinese community oriented style and will focus on players learning several instrument types.
Schedule:
Sundays from 12 - 1:30pm
First class – October 12th
Last Class – November 16th
Class Fees:
Class Fees are sliding scale to ensure people with any economic status may participate.
When choosing your sliding scale rate, please keep in mind that Nusantara Arts depends on the generosity of its community to support high caliber artists and programming.
For participants age 12 and higher. No experience necessary!
Register for class!
Teacher: Tom Torrisi
Tom is a professional classical guitarist, composer, arranger, and Balinese gamelan musician from Clifton Park, NY. Active as both a soloist and chamber musician, Tom has been heard performing throughout the United States and in the UK. Tom is a passionate explorer of non-Western musical styles. This interest has led Tom to extensive involvement with Eastman School of Music’s Balinese gamelan ensembles Gamelan Sanjiwani (gong kebyar) and Gamelan Lila Muni (angklung) and was teaching assistant to gamelan teacher I Nyoman Suadin. Tom is now a core member of Nusantara Arts new Balinese Gamelan program (semar pegulingan and gender wayang styles). Tom is excited to teach his first beginner Balinese music class in Buffalo.
Our Instruments: 7 tone “Semar Pegulingan” style gamelan from Bali are an older “traditional” gamelan ensemble originating in the 1800’s. Unlike Central Java where many types of music are performed on one set of instruments, in Bali you have many different types of ensembles that play specific repertoires. In the Early 20th Century the Semar Pegulingan repertoire and ensemble had disappeared from much of the contemporary Balinese music scene. This ensemble type fell out of favor with the introduction of the “gong kebyar” ensembles. Many Semar pegulingan sets were melted down to create kebyar sets long ago. There is somewhat of an revival of the repertoire in recent times with modern “Smaradana” gamelan sets being built able to play these older songs as well as new Semar Pegulingan sets being built.
