Evan Ziporyn: Founder, Artistic Director and Composer

From Lincoln Center to Balinese temples, from loft spaces to international festivals, composer/performer Evan Ziporyn has traveled the globe in search of new musical possibilities. His work is informed by his 25-year involvement with Balinese gamelan, which has ranged from intensive study of traditional music to the creation of a series of groundbreaking works for gamelan and western instruments. Most recently, he led his 30-member ensemble, Gamelan Galak Tika, in a triumphant debut performance in New York's Zankel Hall, hailed by the New York Times as 'an exuberant blast of metal fireworks.' This was followed in summer 2005 by a multi-city tour of Bali, where the groupperformed his cross-cultural works in collaboration with top Balinese gamelans and choreographers.

Currently he is working on two major projects: a new work for Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, to be premiered in September 2006; and a concerto for gamelan and strings for Galak Tika and the Philadelphia Classical Orchestra, commissioned by the Pew Foundation, to be premiered in April 2007. Other recent large projects have included his acclaimed music for the American Repertory Theater's 2004 production of Oedipus Rex; new orchestral works for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and a new recording of chamber music, Typical Music, for New Albion Records, to be released November 2005.

His compositions have been performed by the Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, Nederlands Blazer Ensemble, master p'ipaist Wu Man, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Maya Beiser and Steven Schick, Arden Trio, California EAR Unit, pianists Sarah Cahill, Christopher Oldfather, and Cristina Valdes, and Orkest de Volharding. As a bass clarinetist, he has developed a distinctive set of extended techniques which he has used in his own solo works, as well as new works by Martin Bresnick, Michael Gordon, and David Lang. His 2001 solo clarinet CD, “This is not a clarinet" (Cantaloupe) received critical acclaim on NPR's All Thing's Considered, PRI's The World, and on numerous critic's top ten lists at year's end. He has been associated with the Bang On A Can Festival since its founding in 1987, appearing as composer, soloist, and ensemble leader. As a member of the Bang On A Can All-stars, he has toured over a two dozen countries and worked with composers such as Louis Andriessen, Iva Bittova, Glenn Branca, Don Byron, Alvin Curran, Nick Didkovsky, Arnold Dreyblatt, Philip Glass, Steve Martland, Meredith Monk, Thurston Moore, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Terry Riley, Ralph Shapey, Matthew Shipp, Tan Dun, Cecil Taylor, and Henry Threadgill. In addition to writing for the group and co-producing several of their recordings, he has arranged for the group works by Brian Eno, Conlon Nancarrow, Hermeto Pascoal, and Kurt Cobain. He also regularly performs and records as a featured soloist with Steve Reich and Musicians, and shared in their 1999 Grammy for “Music for 18 Musicians”. As a conductor, he has toured Europe with Germany's acclaimed Ensemble Modern and has recorded Michael Gordon's "Weather" with Ensemble Resonanz for Nonesuch.

Born in Chicago in 1959, Ziporyn received degrees from Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley, where his teachers included John Blacking, Martin Bresnick, Gerard Grisey, and David Lewin. Upon completing a Fullbright Fellowship in Indonesia, he became Musical Coordinator of San Francisco's Gamelan Sekar Jaya in 1988. He collaborated with Balinese composer I Nyoman Windha on "Kekembangan," a border-crossing work for full gamelan and saxophone quartet. Moving to Boston in 1990 to take a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993. His works for gamelan and western instruments have been released on two volumes for New World Records.

As a performer and recording artist, Ziporyn has worked with a range of master musicians from numerous musical cultures, including Paul Simon (with whom he toured throughout the fall of 2000), DJ Spooky, Matthew Shipp, Balinese dalang I Wayan Wija, Burmese pat waing master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Darius Brubeck, Nobukazu Takemura, Todd Reynolds and Ethel, Sandhile Shange and Allen Kwela, Bob Moses, Andrea Parker, Trichy Sankaran, and Tony Scott. Venues have included New York's Lincoln Center, the Sydney Opera House (for the 2000 Olympic Arts Festival), Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Southbank Centre, the Bali Arts Festival, and at least a dozen other countries. As a player, he has recorded for Sony Classical, Nonesuch, Gramavision, New Albion, and Point Music. He has received grants from the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Program, Meet the Composer, the New England Foundation for the Arts, NEA/Arts International, ASCAP, the Cambridge Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was the 2004 recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, and is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is Head of Music and Theater Arts. His puppet opera,”Shadow Bang,” a collaboration with Balinese puppeteer I Wayan Wija, was recently released on Cantaloupe Music.

I Made Bandem, Dancer

I Made Bandem is widely regarded as the foremost living expert on traditional Balinese dance and drama; his groundbreaking book, “Balinese Dance in Transition,” was the first extensive study of the art form to be published in the west.  Descended from a long line of arja (Balinese opera) dancers in Singapadu Village, Dr. Bandem was a well-known “Baris” dancer in Bali by the age of 10.  Turning to scholarship, in 1980 he became the first Balinese artist to receive a PhD in ethnomusicology, from Wesleyan University.  He then spent 16 years as director of ISI Arts Academy in Denpasar, during which he championed the resuscitation of many near-lost classical forms.  In recognition for this, he received UNESCO’s 1994 International Music Council Award. He went on to became Rektor of ISI Yogyakarta and is currently Professor of Balinese Dance at Holy Cross.   He has led ensembles and danced on numerous world tours, including appareances at World Expositions in Vancouver, Brisbane, and Sevilla. 

Cynthia Laksawana, Dancer

Cynthia C. Laksawana started learning Balinese dance at age 8 with several Balinese dance masters at the art gallery of Nyoman Gunarsa in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She continued her dancing study at ASTI (now ISI) in Yogyakarta under the direction of ISI Professor Ni Nyoman Sudewi.

She persued her Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering from University of New Haven in Connecticut. Representing the Indonesian Students in Connecticut, she helped in chareographing Kecak Ramayana and presented some Balinese traditional dances in several different International Nights in several universities.

When she came to Boston in 1993 pursuing her graduate study in Chemical Engineering and Engineering Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, she had the opportunity to learn more Balinese dances from the renowned Balinese dance master/composer/singer Desak Made Suarti Laksmi and her husband, Balinese Dance Master, I Nyoman Catra, the co-founders of Gamelan Galak Tika of MIT at Cambridge, MA.

Cynthia has also had the opurtunity to learn dances from other Balinese Master Dancers/Composers I Wayan Dibia and I Nyoman Cerita.

She has been performing with Gamelan Galak Tika throughout the years where she is the dance director of the group. She has been teaching several students who have interest in learning Balinese dances to keep the Balinese dances growing in Boston area.

She is presently working as Validation Engineer for Invensys Validation Technologies based in Foxboro, MA.

Dewa Ketut Alit, Composer, Guest Artistic Director

Dewa Ketut Alit is one of Bali’s most innovative composers and esteemed performers.  Born in Pengosekan Village outside of Ubud, he founded and directs the Cudamani Collective, with whom he has recorded and toured internationally.  He also performs regularly with the Agung Rai Museum Gamelan in Peliatan and Gamelan Semara Ratih in Ubud.  Dewa has performed frequently in the United States and Japan and also toured through Greece, Denmark, Singapore, and Hong Kong.  Besides touring with Balinese groups, he has had residencies and written compositions for the University of British Columbia’s Gamelan Gita Asmara; Helena College in Perth, Australia; and the Putalaka Group in Tokyo, Japan.

Desak Made Suarti Laksmi, Cofounder, Dancer, Composer

Desak Made Suarti Laksmi is a performer of Balinese dance, arja (opera) and gamelan, and is one of only two internationally performed female composers from Bali.  She received degrees from the National College of the Arts (STSI) in Denpasar.  Her innovative compositions for gamelan and chorus have been featured annually at the Bali International Arts Festival since 1986.  She has toured extensively in Australia, Europe, India, Japan, Canada and the United States.  Since 1985 she has been on the STSI faculty; she has also taught classes at Clark University, Emerson College, Eastman School of Music, and MIT, where she co-founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993.  She is currently Luce Professor of Music, Theater, and Dance at Holy Cross College and is pursuing a graduate degree in composition at Brown University.

I Nyoman Catra, Cofounder, Dancer

I Nyoman Catra is one of Bali’s most renowned traditional dancers.  He has performed in Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia, India and Australia.  In the United States, he has appeared with Julie Taymor at LaMama and at the Henson International Puppet Festival with Larry Reed.  He has taught Balinese performing arts at Eastman, Holy Cross, and MIT, where he co-founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993.  He holds a BA from the National College of the Arts (STSI) in Denpasar, Indonesia, and an MA in theater from Emerson College.  He is currently a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan, with the support of the Asian Cultural Council and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Christine Southworth, composer

Christine Southworth, through her work with robots and automated music systems as co-founder and Director of Ensemble Robot, is making groundbreaking music based on the interaction between technology and creativity. Compared to Thurston Moore (Boston Phoenix, 2/11/05) and Laurie Anderson (Boston Globe, 2/4/05), Southworth is introducing a brand new genre of music to Boston, born out of the area’s complex community of scientists and artists. Her February 2005 performance of Zap! overfilled the Boston Museum of Science’s Theater of Electricity with an energized crowd of 500 students, professors, artists, children, and adults. The Boston Phoenix called the show “truly electrifying,” describing that “Ever since Bob Dylan, ‘going electric’ has had many connotations, but this was something different: though Zap! utilized the talents of a flutist, two keyboardists, a cellist, a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a vocalist, a double-helix-shaped robotic xylophone, sound engineers, and computer programmers, the centerpiece of Southworth’s performance was electricity itself, as millions of volts buzzed, fizzled, and sparked in deafening cracks that punctuated her music.” (Will Spitz, Boston Phoenix)

Southworth received a B.S. from MIT in 2002 in mathematics and music and M.A. in Computer Music & Multimedia Composition from Brown University in 2006. She composes for Western ensembles, Balinese gamelan, and mixed ensembles of gamelan, western instruments, electronics, and robots. Her compositions draw from her interests in modern American and European music, jazz, Balinese music, and rock and roll, and have received awards and recognition from the LEF Foundation, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and the Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music. Her compositions have been played by Gamelan Galak Tika, Ethel, Bang on a Can, Arnold Dreyblatt’s Orchestra of Excited Strings, Alarm Will Sound, the NEC Wind Ensemble, and Ensemble Robot, at venues including the Boston Museum of Science, Mass MoCA, Jordan Hall, MIT, Wesleyan University, and in Bali, Indonesia.

Gamelan Galak Tika

About the group
Gamelan Galak Tika was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in September 1993 by Artistic Director Evan Ziporyn along with Balinese artists Nyoman Catra and Desak Made Suarti Laksmi. A part of the MIT Music and Theater Arts program, its membership is comprised of both students and members of the community. Since its inception the group has devoted itself to traditional Balinese music and dance, as well as new works by Balinese and American composers. It has given dozens of performances around the East Coast and New England, at venues ranging from the Bang On A Can Marathon at Lincoln Center to Boston's First Night. Its programs have included presentations of traditional Balinese repertoire, new works by 20th century Balinese composers, and new works combining gamelan with western instruments and electronics. It has given school workshops, offered dance classes, and devised the first-ever kecak-a-long, a participatory performance in which 1000 people were taught to shout the interlocking rhythms of the famous Balinese monkey chant. Its first commercial recording, featuring works by Ziporyn, was released on the New World label in the summer of 2000. Its new album, Dangerous Things, has just been released, featuring traditional Balinese gamelan and a new composition by Dan Schmidt. The name Galak Tika is Old Javanese for "Intense Togetherness".

Balinese Music
Gamelan still dominates traditional life in Bali, being a necessary component of any religious ceremony, civic event, or family celebration. The word itself (from a root meaning "to hammer") denotes any musical ensemble on the island, of which there are dozens of different types, from 50-piece metal court orchestras to two-piece jaw harp duos. All share a similar musical and social design, reflective of Balinese life, full of interlocking relationships that are both vertical and horizontal, physical and psychical. Traditional Bali Hinduism - separated from the Indian subcontinent for centuries, and thus unique in theory and practice - dictates daily life in immediate and long-term ways. The Balinese are keenly aware of the cycles of life and of their relation both to the cosmos and to their daily lives, so that three-day market cycles are every bit as laden with religious significance as are once-a-century temple ceremonies. Gamelan presents this reality in musical form: it is cyclical yet linear, constantly alternating between event-overload and waktu kosong - "empty time." A person's role within the ensemble is strictly defined and limited, only becoming meaningful in relation to the whole through an ingenious and unique type of interlocking rhythm known as kotekan.

Bali today is in transition: McDonalds and the Hard Rock Café nestle next to the village meeting hall in Kuta Beach, and its culture develops while maintaining a strong connection to its past. The dominant gamelan form remains gong kebyar, a dynamic reformulation of traditional elements that emerged in the wake of the Dutch invasion in the early 20th century. This remains the core of our repertoire, and is represented tonight by three dance pieces. These are framed tonight by the fruits of our latest adventures in cross-cultural music-making: new works by five of our members, all using traditional instruments and traditional techniques toward musical goals influenced variously by western classical music, progressive rock, aleatoricism, and electronica. We have tried to approach this music in the spirit of the Balinese, who never shy away from incorporating new and foreign elements into their own vibrant tradition. —Evan Ziporyn

Gamelan Galak Tika 2007-08

Evan Ziporyn, artistic director
Sean Mannion, music director
Christine Southworth, general manager

Larisa Berger, Lina Bird, Jarad Brown, Kristen Burrall, Bob Burns, Thomas Carr, Ramon Castillo, Therese Condit, Eun-Kyoung Kang, Eli Kao, Jason Kaufman, Midori Matsuo, Erin McCoy, Michelle Merill, Steve Merill, John Price, Sachi Sato, Julie Strand, Mark Stewart, Megan Tsai, Po-Chun Wang, Jacques Weissgerber, Nina Young