Our Crowdfunding Groups
Thank you for supporting the Emory Gamelan Ensemble Momentum campaign. This crowdfunding campaign has ended, but you can still support our project.
Give Today!
Established in 1997, The Emory Gamelan Ensemble (EGE) celebrates our cultural diversity by engaging the Emory campus and the Atlanta community through the study and performance of traditional Indonesian music. Our hope is that our performances—both on campus, and throughout Atlanta at venues like the High Museum of Art, churches, and festivals—will inspire cross-cultural understanding through the arts and that audiences will come away from these experiences with an affinity for a distant neighbor to whom they may not yet have been introduced. We collaborate with students, faculty, and artists from the Atlanta community to produce packed-house shows, requesting only a suggested donation at the door.
For the last four years, EGE has relied heavily on dedicated community members, Emory faculty, and PhD candidates for leadership and regular rehearsal instruction. Because gamelan music is traditionally not notated, we must maintain long-distance mentorships with Indonesian masters. Occasionally, we have been fortunate enough to bring an Indonesian master to Atlanta for a short workshop to continue passing on gamelan’s oral tradition.
In order to improve our musicianship, Emory Gamelan Ensemble is seeking funding to bring internationally renowned Indonesian musician Darsono—who has taught and trained countless musicians and puppeteers the world over—as an artist in residence for the 2019 spring semester at Emory.
With over 20 years of musicmaking and puppeteering experience, including studies at the Institute of Indonesian Arts Surakarta and service as a royal court musician at the Mangkunegaran Palace of Surakarta, Indonesia, Darsono will deepen EGE’s impact in the community.
During his residency, Darsono will:
The timing is perfect! We are at a unique juncture where Darsono is available for residency at the same time the EGE has a critical need for educational leadership from a gamelan master musician. Your gifts will support continued efforts to enhance EGE, and bring culture and the arts to our community.
Thank you for your support.
The peking is a small, shining instrument that plays more notes in a cycle, usually ahead of anyone else. Therefore, many larger instruments look to peking for leadership in any given moment.
A two-handed instrument, the bonang requires more dedication to play with confidence. When it has the opportunity, the bonang section can bloom into flowers that greatly enrich the performance.
(Forgive us for thinking binarily in our wordplay) The singular sound of the gendèr is even more delicate than the decision of the size of a gift that you might donate to our ensemble.
This instrument combo creates a steady, but intermittent metronome that moves the song cycle forward in less frequent, but steady chunks.
Most drums keep a beat. Often the kendang will dance around a specific pulse, while somehow still delivering a sense of a driving beat. Another power of this instrument is its ability to signal huge shifts in tempo and style, or even shifts from one part of a song to the next.
The gong is the most boss instrument in all the gamelan. All of those mentioned above play through cycles in gamelan music. The punctuation for these cycles is the gong. It launches each song into motion, and brings each song to a close. Its sound is deep and resonant, as much felt in the chest as it is heard by the ear.