There are more than 100 gamelan groups in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. A

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

is a musical ensemble from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, typically from the islands of

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, featuring a variety of instruments such as

metallophone A metallophone is any musical instrument in which the sound-producing body is a piece of metal (other than a metal string), consisting of tuned metal bars, tubes, rods, bowls, or plates. Most frequently the metal body is struck to produce sound, ...

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

s, drums and

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

bamboo flute The bamboo flute, especially the bone flute, is one of the oldest musical instruments known. Examples of Paleolithic bone flutes have survived for more than 40,000 years, to be discovered by archaeologists. While the oldest flutes currently kno ...

s, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included. The earliest appearance of a gamelan in the U.S. is considered to be at the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in Chicago in 1893; this set of instruments is still at the

Chicago Field Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

. The first academic program to include the playing of gamelan was established by

Mantle Hood Mantle Hood (June 24, 1918 – July 31, 2005) was an American ethnomusicologist. Among other areas, he specialized in studying gamelan music from Indonesia. Hood pioneered, in the 1950s and 1960s, a new approach to the study of music, and the cr ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in 1958. There are actively performing gamelan groups in roughly two thirds of the states in the U.S., using instruments made in the Indonesian regions of

, Sunda (

West Java West Java ( id, Jawa Barat, su, ᮏᮝ ᮊᮥᮜᮧᮔ᮪, romanized ''Jawa Kulon'') is a province of Indonesia on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten ...

Banyumas Banyumas ( jv, ꦧꦚꦸꦩꦱ꧀, formerly spelt "Banjoemas") Regency is a regency ( id, kabupaten) in the southwestern part of Central Java province in Indonesia. Its capital is the town of Purwokerto, but that town no longer has a central adm ...

, and/or North America. Many schools, universities and other institutions in North America own sets of gamelan instruments, and there are increasing numbers of community-based ensembles as well. The earliest directory of gamelan in North America was compiled by Barbara Benary in 1993 for '' Ear Magazine'', which included 98 sets (not all with active players); since then the number has increased steadily.Jody Diamond. "Review: Out of Indonesia: Global Gamelan." ''Ethnomusicology'' 42/1 (Winter 1998), 174-183.

List by state

References

Notes and bibliography

*This list is based on a directory designed and first compiled by Barbara Benary in 1983, and published in a special issue of EAR magazine. A version of that list, still maintained by Benary, is a
International Gamelan Directory
hosted by the

American Gamelan Institute The American Gamelan Institute (AGI) is an organization devoted to promoting and documenting all forms of gamelan, the performing arts of Indonesia, and their international counterparts. The Institute was founded in Berkeley, California, in 1981; ...

. That site also contains lists of groups in other countries as well, particularly Japan. * from the

Embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

of the

Republic of Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea. Ind ...

*Diamond, Jody & Benary, Barbara (2001). "Indonesian music In The United States and Canada." .
The Garland Encyclopedia Of World Music and Dance
' Koskoff, Ellen Editor Vol. 3. pp. 1011–1033. {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Gamelan Ensembles In The United States *

Gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

List by state

See also

References

Notes and bibliography