Duet

Project Description

“Duet” is a composition project for Gamelan and two players or more, initiated by me and the composer Johanes Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi. It results in seven new compositions, worked between July 2024 and January 2025. At the centre of of our artistic concept is the question of what kind of contemporary response we intend to give to the Javanese gamelan music. On the one hand, we respect the tradition, on the other hand, we recognise the musical cultures outside of it. This requires us to look critically at the socio-historical aspects of Javanese culture, with its long tradition of feudal system and strict hierarchies. It was not intellectual knowledge, but an embodied and tacit knowledge that we had accumulated over the years of living inside and outside the Javanese cultural complex. This leads to our interest in exploring these concepts in our practice and their relevance to music composition.

The guiding question of this project is the following: Would it be possible to make the implicit knowledge that we have into verbalised knowledge, so that not only new work is possible, but also leave a trace of how this is achieved?

Central to Javanese philosophy is the concept of “rasa” and “laku”. Rasa is the totality of human experience, which is transcendental in nature. In Javanese thought, this is the main source of “truth” that guides one’s action (laku). Music has therefore an ethical and spiritual dimension. Gamelan practice is a specific kind of “laku” to reach “rasa”. As a result, playing and creating music for the gamelan traditionally requires a certain kind of behaviour, including synergy within the community and a strong sense of harmony in working together.

However, the ideal explnainded above stems from a socio-historical development of Javanese culture with its strict hierarchical structure that places the court at the centre and emphasises the preservation of tradition. In contrast, we ask how all these concepts apply to the world we live in today, i.e., the globalised world with its transculturality, where Javanese culture becomes a subset among many cultures and traditions, and its contemporary challenges.

Demo Album

The result of the composition is planned to be released as an album in 2025. Interested party may request access to listen to this demo by contacting us.

Acknowledgement

The composition project and research is made possible through the Arbeitsstipendien für Alte Musik, Neue Musik und Klangkunst 2024 from the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt Berlin. We are thankful for the support of Haus der Indonesischen Kulturen in Berlin for granting us access to their rehearsal room and the Javanese gamelan instruments.