The Gong Show

You may be well aware that Tufts has 7 a cappella groups, a Symphony Orchestra, a Pep Band, a Gospel Choir, and the like. However, you may not be as familiar with our Javanese Gamelan Ensemble. The gamelan is a musical ensemble consisting primarily of gongs and metallophones. They are found throughout much of Southeast Asia and the Indonesian archipelago. A Javanese gamelan consists of two tuning systems, 5-tone slendro and 7-tone pelog, and several individuals rotate from one instrument to the next to play each composition.

So for years, I've been telling visitors on my tours about our Javanese Gamelan Ensemble, although I had never seen it myself or even knew what it was exactly. I somehow thought it was a giant drum; clearly, I was wrong. My friend Emily, with whom I lived last spring, is majoring in Psychology and Economics, but she needed to fulfill an Arts distribution requirement before graduation. She signed up for the Gamelan Music class and likes it so much that she is contemplating taking it again in the spring!

Thus, I found myself with 6 friends at the Boston Village Gamelan and Tufts University Gamelan Ensemble Concert on Saturday night. We applauded as Emily pounded on the various gongs and xylophones. It was such an incredible spectacle--the bamboo, brass, and bronze gamelan filled the entire stage and musicians kneeled on cushions while they played. Tufts' gamelan was built by the most renowned living gongsmith in Java, Tentrem Sarwanto, and it took him 9 years to complete it. (Unfortunately, my digital camera is broken, so I don't have photos of the actual gamelan--just images I borrowed from Google of other gamelans!)

The performance was held in the Distler Performance Hall, which has been dubbed the "best small recital hall in the Boston area." Distler seats 300 people and is located inside the Granoff Music Center, a $27 million building that opened this past January. The Tufts Department of Music has a very strong ethnomusicology program. In addition to the Javanese gamelan, we have a Kiniwe West African drum and dance ensemble!