Music in the Machine: A Gamelan Workshop with David Powell

Friday December 4  |  6:30 - 7:30 PM  |   Koffler301

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Follow this logic:

A gamelan is a traditional percussion orchestra from Indonesia, primarily from the islands of Bali and Java.

Colin McPhee, a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist, is best known as the first Western composer to study Balinese music and, with fellow composer Lou Harrison, to develop an American gamelan.

Cybèle Young, Canadian visual artist featured in the exhibition Kamiphony at Koffler Arts, is a descendant of McPhee.

Young became fascinated with McPhee's work. While creating Kamiphony—a portmanteau of kami (Japanese: paper) and phonē (ancient Greek: voice or sound)—she embedded the idea of a gamelan in the Machine Pantheon, a series of paper sculptures activated by mechatronics that click, grind, and whirr, resulting in a shifting, musical environment.

Enter David Powell, builder and safekeeper of a somewhat miniaturized Javanese style gamelan in Toronto. This workshop is an opportunity to see the dozens of percussion instruments, hear how they interlock to create rhythms and melodies, and sit down with others to experiment with the instruments!

About David Powell

As a puppeteer with Puppetmongers Theatre, Powell travelled to Indonesia in 1982 on a Canada Council grant to study its vibrant puppet theatre traditions. There, he became captivated by the music of Central Java and, upon returning to Toronto, began researching gamelan, despite there being no local ensemble at the time. Over the next decade, he built his own gamelan set, originally called Anak Enak (“Delicious Child”), using retuned Orff instruments and gongs made from cookpots and storage drums. As Toronto’s gamelan community grew, with Sundanese, Balinese, and Javanese ensembles arriving in the city, Powell had the opportunity to perform with several
groups.

Renamed Cute but Redundant, his gamelan has been used in Toronto schools since 1994. Since 2007, he has also assisted Toronto District School Board teachers, with the Javanese gamelan in their Community Music Program, which serves nine schools annually.