The American Gamelan Institute (AGI) is an organization devoted to promoting and documenting all forms of
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 ...
, the performing arts 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 Guine ...
, and their international counterparts.
The Institute was founded in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...
, in 1981; the office moved to New Hampshire in 1990. AGI publishes scores, recordings, monographs, translations and other material. AGI has an online library with a wide variety of monographs, collections of notation, and a font for the cipher notation commonly used for gamelan, called KepatihanPro. These materials may be freely downloaded for educational use. AGI maintains an extensive archive of notation and scores for both new and traditional gamelan music, scholarly writings on gamelan, as well as audio and video recordings. Its founder and director is the composer and gamelan musician
Jody Diamond
Jody Diamond (born Pasadena, California, April 23, 1953) is an American composer, performer, writer, publisher, editor, and educator. She specializes in traditional and new music for Indonesian gamelan and is active internationally as a schola ...
. The organization's scope includes gamelan music as practiced in Indonesia as well as around the world. The journal ''Balungan'' was started in 1984 to encourage a dialog between artists and scholars involved in gamelan. Current and back issues of ''Balungan'' are on line, and many libraries have subscriptions. The sixteenth issue was printed in December 2010.
AGI also has a
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
, called ''Gongcast'', and hosts directories of gamelan groups around the world. The directories for North America (Canada and the U.S.), are maintained by
Barbara Benary.
In the early 1990s, AGI produced three gamelan festivals called "Planet Gamelan".
AGI is the publisher of all gamelan works by the American composer
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...
, who built gamelan instruments with his partner
William Colvig.
See also
*
Jody Diamond
Jody Diamond (born Pasadena, California, April 23, 1953) is an American composer, performer, writer, publisher, editor, and educator. She specializes in traditional and new music for Indonesian gamelan and is active internationally as a schola ...
*
American gamelan
American gamelan could refer to both instruments and music; the term has been used to refer to gamelan-style instruments built by Americans, as well as to music written by American composers to be played on gamelan instruments. American gamelan ...
*
List of music organizations in the United States
External links
American Gamelan Institute siteCurrent and back issues of ''Balungan''
{{Music organizations
Organizations established in 1981
Gamelan
Organizations based in New Hampshire