RICARDO GALLARDO
COMPOSER / PERCUSSION
Gamelan Jegog
I have always been fascinated by how music travels, adapts and reinvents itself across cultures and genres.
I have been struck by how the expression of traditional music has influenced the development of concert music. Percussion instruments have been central to this interaction.
Since I first encountered Indonesian gamelan music many years ago, my curiosity about this particular art form has been growing.
A very unique type of Gamelan music in Bali is played, not with the more familiar brass instruments (gongs and metallophones), but with bamboo instruments: the Gamelan Jegog.
The following text illustrates how my interest in a traditional Balinese music has been connected to my creative work.
Gamelan Jegog, Sekar Sakura and Ricardo Gallardo
By Maki Takafuji
Gamelan Jegog is a musical art form originated in western Bali, consisting of instruments made of specially tuned bamboo rods which together reach a range of 7 octaves divided in instruments of various sizes and ranges.
Early traces of the Jegog practice date from the first decade of 1900, while Indonesia was under Dutch occupation, which resulted in a disruption in the development of this new art form.
The late I Ketut Suwentra SST, outstanding Balinese musician, decided to bring back Jegog from oblivion. While on a concert tour in Europe, he came across literature about Jegog at a museum in The Nederlands and decided to bring Jegog back to life. Back in Bali, After hearing the story of Jegog from the village elders, he revived the decaying instruments that remained in the village, and devoted his life to the reconstruction of Jegog.
The role of Balinese musicians like the Suwentra, was a key factor for the rebirth and expansion of Gamelan Jegog which later was studied and expanded in countries like the Germany, United States and Japan.
Sekar Sakura, (Jegog Gamelan ensemble based in Nagoya, Japan) has been crucial for the promotion of this art form. For more than 30 years, many percussionists have been fascinated to learn and perform this exciting bamboo ensemble.
In 1980, as the Nagoya College of Music owned a set of Javanese gamelan from Javanese Royal place, Professor Hemeritus Yukie Kurihara (founder of Gamelan Sekar Sakura) and her students went to Bali to learn bronze gamelan Gong Kebiyar every year. They heard the performance of a giant bamboo gamelan Jegog Group consisting of 14 instruments led by I Ketut Suwentra SST]. That was a shocking and historic encounter for Sekar Sakura. The following year, a set of Jegog instruments was acquired by the College and since then, Sekar Sakura visits Bali every year to learn Jegog.
Sekar Sakura has been working with Suwentra in helping Jegog's recovery and development and has gathered a substantial repertoire taught by him.
In 2015, Sekar Sakura met Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, who were also fascinated by Jegog.
Ricardo Gallardo, composer, percussionist and director of Tambuco, composed a wonderful work, Café Jegog, dedicated to Sekar Sakura and included in Tambuco Percussion Ensemble’s CD also titled Café Jegog.
In 2016, Seward Sakura and Tambuco were invited to perform with Suwentra and the amazing Suar Agung Jegog Gamelan led by him at the historic Bali Art Festival in Denpasar, Bali.
The following year, Ricardo wrote a second piece for Sekar Sakura: Renaissance Jegog Dances.
Ricardo’s pieces for Jegog have made a great bridge between Balinese Jegog music and Western music.
Thanks to Ricardo for leading us to the new stage!
A Gamelan Jegog comprises six different types of keyboards, from very small to extremely large bamboo rods. I first heard these instruments about 35 years ago.
In 1997, during Tambuco Percussion Ensemble first tour in Japan, I had the chance to see and play a gamelan Jegog at the Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments and years later, on a subsequent tour, I met the wonderful Jegog ensemble "Sekar Sakura", based in Nagoya, Japan. That is when I started to become directly involved with this fascinating musical language.
Maki Takafuji, director of the gamelan, encouraged me to write a piece for our ensembles: Tambuco and Sekar Sakura.
That was the birth of Café Jegog, a piece that shows my interest and fascination for the encounter of several musical idioms.
Ricardo Gallardo with Mr. I Ketut Suwentra, Bali’s great gamelan jegog master. His Knowledge and enthusiasm were crucial towards the promotion, teaching and preservation of gamelan jegog in Bali and abroad.
Bali, 2016
Both the premiere of the piece as well as it’s recording for the Japanese label “Meister Music” were two very successful events. The Recording was chosen to be one of the best albums by Record Jeijetsu, the main classical review magazine in Japan, and this success led to the invitation for Tambuco and Sekar Sakura to perform Café Jegog at the Bali Festival, in Indonesia.
That was the start of an ongoing collaboration with Sekar Sakura which is still very active to the present day.
The premiere of Café Jegog took place at the Nagakute Cultural Center, in Japan.
A couple of years after the premiere of Café Jegog, I wrote a second piece for this gamelan. The piece is called Rennaisance Jegog Dances.
Listen Café Jegog
Listen Renaissance Jegog Dances
VIDEOS
Café Jegog, for gamelan jegog and percussion quartet Written by Ricardo Gallardo, this piece features the powerful sonority of the gamelan jegog, a Balinese orchestra of instruments made with bamboo rods of different sizes. Tambuco Percussion Ensemble Gamelan Sekar Sakura Recorded live at the Nagakute Cultural Center, Japan.
Rehearsal of Ricardo Gallardo's Café Jegog, for gamelan Jegog and percussion quartet. Performed by Gamelan Sekar Sakura (Nagoya) and Tambuco Percussion Ensemble. Gamelan Jegog is originally from Bali, Indonesia, and consists of a set of instruments made entirely with bamboo tubes of different sizes and ranges, spanning 7 octaves from the lowest to the highest.
