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amelan is the term used to describe the tradition
al ensemble music of Indonesia. The music consists predominantly of perLAN Since their inception in 2014, the NCH Gamelan Orchestra have blossomed, with an impressive array of highprofile concerts and collaborations to their name. WORDS Christian Wethered cussive instruments, particularly metallophones (played with mallets) and a set of hand-drums called kendhang. Gamelan is commonly played in traditional ceremonies, as well as entertainment for some modern events. More traditionally, it accompanies religious rituals, ceremonies, dance-drama, and traditional Indonesian or puppet theatre. Only ten years down the line, NCH Gamelan Orchestra now boast a thriving community of gamelan practitioners, who consist of students, professors, teachers, administrators, amateurs and industry professionals. Their new album Kyai Jati Roso marks their tenyear anniversary, and is a highly absorbing, hypnotic work. I caught up with founder and MD Peter Moran to talk gamelan, the new album, and the orchestra’s legacy in Ireland. To the uninitiated, what is gamelan? What does it mean to you? From where does your interest originate? The word “gamelan” broadly refers to an orchestra of bronze percussion instruments which can be found in many different parts of Indonesia. Perhaps the most recognisable and visually striking instruments of the gamelan orchestra are the great gongs and bronze bars of all sizes, but you will also find wooden xylophones, hand drums, string instruments, bamboo flutes and voices too. Over thousands of years, different regions of Indonesia have developed their own distinct gamelan instruments, playing styles, and sub-genres. The style that I teach is from Central Java . I first heard gamelan music while studying music in UCD, and it was just so tantalizingly different from anything I had heard before, it really compelled me to dig deeper. I first got the opportunity to play the gamelan for myself when I moved to York, England, where I studied with the highly influential gamelan director, Neil Sorrell, while completing my PhD in Composition. The NCH Gamelan Orchestra boasts a long-standing, not to say prestigious, relationship with the Sultanate of Yogyakarta in Java. How did this come about? When I began looking for ways to set up a gamelan in Dublin, first I spoke with the National Concert Hall, who offered to establish a permanent gamelan room, and then I spoke with the Indonesian Embassy, who in turn reached out to the palace. I soon learned that the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono X (known as HBX), is a great champion of the arts, and he has been known to gift entire gamelan orchestras to prestigious cultural institutions around the world. So when he heard that Ireland’s National Concert Hall was seeking to establish a gamelan orchestra here in Dublin, he generously offered to have the entire orchestra of instruments built and shipped over. Not only that, but he then offered to come to Ireland with his personal orchestra of palace musicians to perform a traditional gamelan naming ceremony in the National Concert Hall! That was a really special occasion, and a night to remember. 41