International Gamelan Festival 2018. Gamelan in Tradition and Transition – Focus on Bali

Münchner Stadtmuseum

For over 30 years now the music collection at Munich’s municipal museum in the field of music and cultural education has featured gamelan music from Bali and Java. Now this focus is to be deepened and brought to an international highpoint: the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is supporting eight outstanding gamelan artists from countries like Indonesia, the USA and Great Britain who together are to develop new gamelan works presenting to the audience the wide range of possibilities offered by this musical form and, in particular, its latest developments.

The focus of the festival lies on the practical understanding of gamelan playing, the key to greater understanding of the music. For this reason the heads of the performing groups will be offering workshops for schoolchildren and students. What is particularly important with this ensemble performance is the integrative aspect: to the groups it is not only about imparting the social and aesthetic code of values of a foreign culture but also conveying the fun of these sounds and the music. A public symposium held concurrently with the festival not only brings together gamelan experts and ethno musicologists but also conveys to interested lay people deeper insights into the musical thought and the aesthetics of other cultures.

June 7, 2018 – August 16, 2018

Münchner Stadtmuseum, Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Gasteig, Munich, Germany

www.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de