Table of Contents
Experimental Gamelan
American Gamelan
Barbara Benary
Gamelan Son of Lion
Built by Barbara Benary along with with Philip Corner and Daniel Goode
Here is a short video with Barbara Benary explaining the history of Son of Lion and the connection with other American Gamelan.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Dennis Murphy
Built the first American Gamelan at Wesleyan University in the 1960s
He published his Ph.D. dissertation “The Autochthonous American Gamelan” in 1975 that goes into detail into the construction of his instruments
Sir Honorable Voice of Thoom
The Autochthonous American Gamelan
Lou Harrison
Old Granddad
Si Betty
Harvard and now Bucknell University
Si Darius/Si Madeleine
Mills College
Daniel Schmidt
The Berkeley Gamelan
Gamelan Pacifica
William Colvig
Brian Baumbusch
Lightbulb Ensemble
Gamelan Adjacent Ensembles
Aaron Taylor Kuffner
The Gamelatron
Terry Dame
Electric Junkyard Gamelan
The Electric Junkyard Gamelan is an experimental ensemble built out of instruments made by Terry Dame. The ensemble plays Balinese Gamelan inspired music.
Relationship makers have to one another
“We were playing on what Lou called the “American Gamelan,” and when Barbara [Benary] and I pointed out to him that, “yeah, but it's not the only American gamelan,” because Barbara had already built some, and Dennis Murphy before her, and Paul [Dresher] and I were working on instruments, and it turned out that David Doty and Harry Rosenthal were also building their own set… It was wonderful! And that's where it started. That was the beginning of American gamelan.” 1)
Brian Baumbusch was a student of Daniel Schmidt.
American Gamelan institute
Balungan
Balungan is a periodical published by the American Gamelan institute.
NOTES
A dissertation “Gamelan as World Citizen: American Experimental Music and the Internationalization of Gamelan” by Jay Arms on the subject of American Gamelan can be found in full here 2)
Here is a link to the digital back issues of the Balungan, which is a periodical about experimental and American Gamelan. 3)
Link to all back issues of Balungan- 4)