Michael Bakan is a professor of

ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

at Florida State University and director of the

Balinese 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 ...

ensemble ''Sekaa Gong Hanuman Agung'' ("Gamelan Club of the Great

Hanuman Hanuman (; sa, हनुमान, ), also called Anjaneya (), is a Hindu god and a divine '' vanara'' companion of the god Rama. Hanuman is one of the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He is an ardent devotee of Rama and ...

"). He wrote ''Music of Death and New Creation: Experiences in the World of Balinese Gamelan Beleganjur'', a book said to have "elevated

gamelan beleganjur ''Gamelan beleganjur'' (also spelled ''balaganjur'') is one of the most popular styles of gamelan music in Bali. Its closest Western analogue is probably the Western military band. History Like the Western military band, the original purpose o ...

to the level of the much better known gong kebyar". Michael is the brother of noted Canadian legal theorist

Joel Bakan Joel Conrad Bakan (born 1959) is an American-Canadian writer, jazz musician, filmmaker, and professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. Born in Lansing, Michigan, and raised for most of his childhood in ...

References

Living people Florida State University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{musicologist-stub