DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC

• Wednesday 23 May 2001: annual concert in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York. This will feature a unique play with music entitled 'Drawn from the Water.' Originally conceived for the Cheltenham International Festival of Music, where it was performed last July, this show, featuring new sets, shadow puppet theatre and specially composed music, recreates the extraordinary West Javanese folk tale of Sankuriang.

• Saturday 26 May 2001: the worlds first virtual gamelan! As part of the BBC Radio 3 contribution to 'Music Live' the gamelan will give a live broadcast from York City Centre at 1pm. Listeners will be able to join in from their own computers by logging on to www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/gamelan after May 1st.

• Wednesday 4 July 2001: concert in the Cheltenham International Festival of Music with special guest soloists Evelyn Glennie (percussion) and Nicky Losseff (piano and prepared piano). Programme:

  Joko Purwanto Lebaran
  Daniel March Pieces of Five and Three
  Lou Harrison Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan
  Richard Causton Concerto for Percussion and Gamelan
  Neil Sorrell Concerto for Prepared Piano and Gamelan
  Neil Sorrell Postcard from Nibelheim

General Information

Gamelan is the name given to an orchestra of gongs and metallophones (usually made of bronze), with additional instruments and voices, found principally on the islands of Java and Bali. The set housed in the Music Department, University of York, England was made by Tentrem Sarwanto in Solo, Central Java, in 1981 and given the name 'Sekar Petak', which means 'white flower'.(For those who may not know, the city and county of York have the emblem of a white rose.) Its 'birthday,' based on when it was first assembled and tried out by expert musicians in Solo, on Sunday 22nd November 1981, is marked every year by a special playing session, at which the gamelan is offered fruit and white flowers. By happy coincidence, that date is also St. Cecilia's Day, when the West's patron saint of music is honoured.

Gamelan Sekar Petak has the distinction of being the first complete purpose-built Javanese gamelan in a British university, and it has assumed a central position in the music course, with regular rehearsals throughout term, and numerous concerts and workshops for schoolchildren, adults and other university music students. Since the English Gamelan Orchestra, also directed by Neil Sorrell, ceased using the Indonesian Embassy gamelan in 1983, Gamelan Sekar Petak has become the most widely toured gamelan in the country. It has been heard on BBC Radio and also been used in educational and entertainment programmes for children on BBC TV and ITV. Public concerts in York and elsewhere, including appearances at the Cheltenham International Festival of Music and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, have featured the first performance of wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre) with gamelan accompaniment by British musicians, premieres of works specially composed by members of the group, and British premieres of works by Lou Harrison, John Cage and other distinguished American composers, performance with the celebrated percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, as well, of course, as traditional Javanese music for the gamelan. The mixture of traditional and modern, Javanese and Western, is a special feature of concerts by Gamelan Sekar Petak.

If you want to know more about Gamelan Sekar Petak, email the director, Neil Sorrell, on nfis1@york.ac.uk

More about the story of how it was manufactured may be found in Neil Sorrell's book A Guide to the Gamelan
(London: Faber and Faber, 1990. 2nd edition, ed. M. Hatch. Ithaca, N.Y.: Society for Asian Music, 2000)

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