Artist Information Instrumentation We have multiple configurations of instruments available to perform an array of traditional and modern music, ranging from a 2 or 4 person gender wayang ensemble to a 30 person full gamelan gong kebyar, with metallophones, drums, gongs, and flutes. Biography Gamelan Galak Tika is approximately 30 members strong, drawing its membership from MIT students, staff, and community. Our founder and director is Evan Ziporyn, world-renowned composer and MIT Distinguished Professor of Music. We rehearse for roughly five hours a week, and we perform as often as we can. The group learns aurally, without the aid of notation, and functions in the tradition of a Balinese village sekeha, with decisions made communally and responsibilities shared among the members of the ensemble. Since its inception, the group has devoted itself both to studying traditional Balinese music and dance and to developing 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 and Brooklyn Academy of Music to Boston’s First Night to an appearance at the Kripalu Yoga Institute. Its programs have included presentations of traditional Balinese repertoire, new works by twentieth-century Balinese composers, collaborations with the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble and tai chi master Bow Sim Mark, andwith famed computer music duo Basso Bongo on Ziporyn's Amok! Gamelan Galak Tika has given school workshops, offered dance classes, and also devised the first-ever “kecak-along,” a participatory performance in which 1,000 people were taught to shout the interlocking rhythms of the famous Balinese monkey chant. Galak Tika has premiered music and dance works by Dewa Ketut Alit, Nyoman Catra, Desak Made Suarti Laksmi, Wayan Lotring, Gde Manik, I Mario, Joshua Penman, Dan Schmidt, Danielle Smith, Christine Southworth, Nyoman Windha, Evan Ziporyn, and Rebecca Zook. Galak Tika is Bahasa Kawi (classical Javanese, a dialect of Sanskrit) for "intense togetherness." Website Discography |