Lessons Of The Garden Gate Path Waterway - Music

Lessons Of The Garden Gate Path Waterway by Gamelan Madu Sari

Gamelan Madu Sari

Artist Biography For Gamelan Madu Sari

The Percussion-Based Javanese Gamelan Orchestra Is One Of The World's Great Musical Traditions. Here Five Vancouver Composer-Performers Bring Their Experience In This And Other Forms Of Music -- Western Classical New Music Jazz Vietnamese And Balinese Musics Electroacoustic Composition And Improvisation -- Extending The Tradition In Ways Of Fascinating Beauty. Founded In 1986 Gamelan Madu Sari "The Essence Of Honey" Has Performed Traditional And New Music For Gamelan As Well Traditional Javanese Dance Dance Drama Shadow Play And Contemporary Multimedia Works. For Its First Record The Gamelan Has Selected Compositions Created On It By Four Composers Who Have Also Been Active As Performers In The Group Over The Years And By Jazz/improv Pianist Paul Plimley. Two Sets Of Gamelan Instruments Are Represented And Each Work Takes A Novel Approach To Form With A Unique Play Of Instrumental Colours. Kenneth Newby's "Dreams He Is A Ball Of Fire... Or A Hummingbird" Includes Spoken Text Choral Singing And Interlocking Lines Of Rhythmically Charged Counterpoint All In Celebration Of The Birth Of His Son. Its Archetypal Text And Ritual Mood Are Characteristic Of Newby's Music Which Is Concerned With The Natural World The Meeting Of Cultures "deep Listening" And Transcendence Ecology Of Souls 1993 Sirens 1997 Newby Was Also Prominent In The Ethno-Ambient Groups Trance Mission And Lights In A Fat City . Michael O'Neill's "Lessons Of The Garden" Uses Hocketing Between The Two Gamelan Tuning Systems Slendro And Pelog To Produce An Expanded Mode. Partly Inspired By Ravel And Minimalism It Swells And Flows. O'Neill Also Plays And Composes New Music For Scottish Bagpipes And "Lessons" Begins With An Eerie Prelude For Droning Plastic Chanters And Clanging Clusters Of Bronze.