From Issue 1
Gong Kebyar Top 5
I Wayan Sinti, I Made Arnawa, dan Putu Tiodore Adi Bawa
Untuk fokus edisi majalah ini, kami mewawancarai I Wayan Sinti, I Made Arnawa, dan salah satu seniman muda yang naik daun saat ini, bernama Putu Tiodore Adi Bawa, dan minta daftar lima pilihan terbaik karya-karya gong kebyar. Kami juga meminta komposisi terbaik untuk gong kebyar yang mereka ciptakan sendiri. Inilah pilihan mereka:
I Wayan Sinti
Pilihan favorit:
- Jaya Warsa – I Gusti Putu Made Gria [1969]
- Taruna Jaya – Pan Wandres/Gede Manik
- Oleg Tambulilingan – tabuh oleh I Wayan Sukra, tari oleh I Ketut Mario
- Giri Gara Dahana – Ida Bagus Gede [1969]
- Panji Semirang – I Wayan Lotring
Pilihan favorit yang dibuat sendiri:
- Ajnyaswari
Dengerkan Ajnyaswari – I Wayan Sinti [Badung 1998]
Dengarkan I Wayan Sinti menjelaskan pilihanya [16min]
I Made Arnawa
Pilihan favorit:
- Sekar Gendot – Anonim
- Wilet Mayura – I Wayan Sinti/Nyoman Rembang [1982]
- Mina Ing Segara – I Wayan Beratha [1982]
- Palguna Warsa – I Wayan Beratha [Juara 1 Festival Merdangga Utsava 1968]
- Jagra Parwata – I Nyoman Windha [Desa Munduk 1991]
Pilihan favorit yang dibuat sendiri:
- Perbawa
Dengerkan Perabawa – I Made Arnawa [Berlin 2005]
Putu Tiodore Adi Bawa
Pilihan favorit:
- Tabuh Lelambatan Lokarya – I Wayan Sinti [1993]
- Tabuh Kreasi Ombak Ing Segara – I Wayan Widia [1993]
- Tabuh Kreasi Palu Gangsa – I Made Subandi [2003]
- Tabuh Kreasi Gadung Kasturi – I Nyoman Windha [1993]
- Tabuh Kreasi Bintang Kartika – I Made Subandi [2007]
Pilihan favorit yang dibuat sendiri:
- Blabur Agung
Dengerkan Blabur Agung – Putu Tiodore Adi Bawa [Sekaa Gong Eka Darma Duta Desa Pujungan, Tabanan PKB 2017]
Insitu Recordings
About the author(s)
Zachary Hejny
Zachary Hejny is a California-born composer and performer of experimental music residing in Indonesia. His work explores polytemporality, incidental tuning systems, ecological sound structures, and philosophies of noise. Current projects include electro-acoustic instrument building using recycled materials, an environmental sound map, a metronome app practice aid for Balinese kendang tunggal, and various music for visual media. He received a DMA in composition from UC Santa Cruz (2021) and currently works as a foreign researcher at IKIP Saraswati Tabanan.
Zachary participates in various contemporary music scenes on Bali, primarily as an avid student of gender wayang, gamelan composer, and performing sound artist. Previous involvement with Balinese music involves a Darmasiswa cultural immersion scholarship (2012), a master’s degree from ISI Denpasar (2015), numerous festival commissions (including at the Bali Arts Festival in 2017), and a Fulbright Student Research grant (2023). He currently volunteers as Assistant Director and board member for Insitu Recordings, where he helps edit a digital magazine, maintain an archive of historical gamelan recordings, and document creative work by emerging Balinese composers.
Tabanan, Bali
Jonathan Adams
Jonathan Adams is an ethnomusicologist, electronic musician, and visual artist with broad interest in Balinese music. His experience includes formal study of longstanding ritual and court musics, participation in performances of new and innovative works, as well as instrument building and tuning. To date, he has spent 5+ years living in Indonesia. This included a one-year stay (2007/2008) supported by the Indonesian Darmasiswa program; and a four-year stay (2013-2017) that involved research on seven-tone music associated with Javano-Balinese poetry, assisting the experiential education program at the School for International Training, and co-founding Insitu Recordings. He received a BA in Ethnomusicology and Comparative Religion from the University of Washington in 2007, where he also spearheaded the realization of an innovative 9-tone gamelan developed by I Wayan Sinti, called Siwa Nada. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia (2021) and is currently adjunct assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research has been supported by the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (Henry Luce Fellowship 2014), a Tina and Morris Wagner Foundation Fellowship (2014-2015), and an Elsie and Audrey Jang Scholarship in Cultural Diversity and Harmony (2017-2018).
Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
Image: Kawamura Koheisai (Kohey)
I Putu Gede Sukaryana (Balot)
I Putu Gede Sukaryana, better known as Balot, began taking gamelan seriously when he enrolled at the high school arts conservatory SMK 3 Sukawati at the age of 15. After graduation he enrolled in the karawitan program at Institut Seni Indonesia, Denpasar, where he engaged with talented and aspiring musicians from across Bali and realized a future dedicated to music was possible. By the time he completed his arts education on Bali he was already a highly sought after performer, and since graduation he has been invited to lead several high-caliber international collaborations, including reworks of Scarlatti’s keyboard music and Bach fugues for Yantra Productions (Italy), experiments with Lithuanian electronic musician and composer Paulius Kilbauskas, and collaborative compositions with American composer Wayne Vitale. His work is recognized internationally and celebrated for its originality and emphasis on process over product. In 2016 he co-founded the record label and arts collective Insitu Recordings with Jonathan Adams and is currently the project’s artistic director. In 2017 he accepted a visiting artist residency at the University of British Columbia, where he got his Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology.
Desa Beraban, Tabanan, Bali, Indonesia
Photo: Jonathan Adams
People and organizations mentioned in this article
I Wayan Sinti (Sinti)
Many know I Wayan Sinti as a classical artist, but he is also a top innovator, composer, teacher and artist in Bali. Sinti was born in 1943 in Ubung Village and started studying vocals and gamelan in 1957. His interest in art led him to continue his studies at KOKAR. Because he was the best graduate at that time, the school where he studied hired him as a teacher. Apart from teaching in Bali, Sinti has also been invited to the Center for World Music in Berkeley, America and continued his ethnomusicology education at San Diego State University and graduated with an MA in music. Besides being active in teaching, Sinti also makes innovations in Balinese gamelan, such as making several new gamelans, Manikasanti and Shiwa Nada. As for some of I Wayan Sinti’s works, Lokarya, Ajnyaswari, Wilet Mayura, are still favored by the gamelan community because they are innovative but still have strong roots in Balinese artistic traditions.
Bali, Indonesia
I Made Arnawa (Arnawa)
I Made Arnawa initially did not intend to make gamelan his career choice. Started learning gamelan at the age of seven, but decided to continue his secondary school in agriculture and work as an agricultural extension worker. But at a turning point when hearing Adi Merdangga directed by ASTI Denpasar made his passion for gamelan re-emerge and continued his education at STSI until finally completing his formal education in the Karawitan department at STSI Denpasar and ISI Surakarta. Since then Arnawa has become a well-known gamelan composer and teacher and is often invited to teach and create works in various places in the world including Taiwan, Germany, the United States and others.
Desa Tunjuk, Kab. Tabanan, Bali, Indonesia
Putu Tiodore Adi Bawa
Winning several competitions in the Bali Baleganjur Festival held by the Badung Regency made Putu Tiodore Adi Bawa‘s name to be taken into account in Bali today. Born into a family of artists, his talent was seen from a young age and he decided to study karawitan at the ISI Denpasar, which in 2009 made a work entitled Gelar Saet using the gamelan Semarandhana as a final project. Apart from making compositions for the gamelan Baleganjur and Semaradhana, Tiodore is also active in developing the sekehe Gong Kebyar. He has been trusted to be a coach in Tabanan Regency from 2009 to the present, and one of his Tabuh Kreasi compositions entitled Blabur Gunung was performed by Sekehe Gong Eka Dharma Duta, Pujungan Village, Tabanan at the Gong Kebyar Festival at the Bali Arts Festival in 2017.
Bali, Indonesia