Dennis Murphy (January 19, 1934 – November 29, 2010) was a composer, musician, instrument maker, artist, and playwright. Dennis Murphy was one of the fathers of American gamelan (along with

William Colvig William (Bill) Colvig (March 13, 1917 – March 1, 2000) was an electrician and amateur musician who was the partner for 33 years of composer Lou Harrison, whom he met in San Francisco in 1967. Colvig helped construct the American gamelan used in ...

). Lou Harrison credits Murphy as being the first North American to build gamelan instruments. He composed numerous works and

shadow plays ''Shadow Plays'' is a solo piano album by Craig Taborn. It was recorded in concert in March 2020 and was released by ECM Records the following year. Background Taborn's previous solo piano album, '' Avenging Angel'', was recorded in 2010. Since ...

for gamelan. Starting around 1959 or 1960, while earning a master's degree in

theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

and composition at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

, Murphy got interested in gamelan during a survey course which included a section on

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 ...

. He heard a recording of

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 ...

nese gamelan and was hooked. About that time, the head of the economics department, L. Reed Tripp, returned from Java where he had been on a Ford Foundation grant. While in

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 ...

, Tripp's two young sons became involved with a children's gamelan group. The boys loved it so much that their parents bought a small slendro gamelan and shipped it to their home in Madison. Then Mrs. Tripp called Bob Crane, a composition professor, and asked if he knew anyone who would like to try Javanese Gamelan. So Crane, Murphy and his wife Pat, and few more people started learning what the children could show them, and it went from there. Shortly after this, Murphy began constructing gamelan instruments and started composing short pieces for gamelan at the same time. The whole story is described in ''"Th
Autochthonous
American Gamelan"'', Murphy's thesis written while working towards his PhD in

from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. He named the gamelan ''"Venerable Sir Voice of Thoom"'' and invented an entire cosmology and artificial language to go with it (Thoomese). Murphy started teaching at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont in the fall 1967. A student group using Murphy's instruments had its first performance the same year. More instruments were made with occasional student help. Instruments were hammered out of steel, or made from found objects such as a car hubcap, soup cans, or an antique milk-strainer. For a couple of years there were nine people in the ensemble (three were named Dennis.) The Goddard Gamelan performed traditional Javanese gamelan pieces along with pieces composed by Murphy and students. By the mid seventies the ensemble had grown to full complement of instruments tuned in both pelog and slendro. Students designed and constructed a building to house the instruments for rehearsals and performances. In 1980, Goddard made major cuts to its academic programs, and the gamelan moved to the Plainfield Community Center and was renamed the

Plainfield Village Gamelan Plainfield may refer to: Places Canada * Plainfield, Ontario United States * Plainfield, California * Plainfield, Connecticut ** Plainfield Village, Connecticut * Plainfield, Georgia * Plainfield, Illinois * Plainfield, Indiana, a town in H ...

. Later, the ensemble moved to Murphy's farm in Plainfield where the group continued to perform. In later years, Murphy was a faculty member with the

Vermont Governor's Institute on the Arts Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provin ...

. Several of Murphy's students have become instrument makers.

Barbara Benary Barbara Benary (April 7, 1946 – March 17, 2019) was an American composer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Indonesian and Indian music.Gann, Kyle"Barbara Benary and the Expanding Braid" New World Records; accessed June 28, 2019. Benary co ...

while not a student of Murphy made a gamelan following directions in Murphy's thesis, and then went on to make more instruments of her own design, notably giant bar-and-resonator gongs, using one-gallon paint cans to build the tubes. Murphy also composed pieces of

chamber Chamber or the chamber may refer to: In government and organizations *Chamber of commerce, an organization of business owners to promote commercial interests *Legislative chamber, in politics *Debate chamber, the space or room that houses deliber ...

and choral music. He performed with the

Fyre & Lightning Consort Fyre may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media *Fyre Festival, a fraudulent, widely criticized music concert on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma **''Fyre Fraud'', a 2019 Hulu documentary about the Fyre Festival ** ''Fyre'' (film), a 2019 Netf ...

and the Nisht Geferlach Klezmer Band. He also wrote a number of plays which might be loosely categorized with the

Theatre of the Absurd The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of ...

, among them "The Goat Painter" and "The Half-Moon Window". Many of the words and phrases in these plays, such as "Rug Sand," "Office Oil," and Hospital Ice," were taken from the page headers from the local

Yellow Pages The yellow pages are telephone directories of businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for ...

. He was a vegetarian and did not wear anything made from animal products, preferring a rope belt and flip-flops in all kinds of weather.

References

Audio interview and biographical information from Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar"The Structure, repair, and acoustical properties of the classical drums of India, with specific reference to mrdanga and tabla," Journal of the Madras Music Academy, 1965

External links

*
Musician Dennis Murphy To Be Remembered In Plainfield
Vermont Public Radio News {{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, Dennis American male composers Gamelan musicians 1934 births 2010 deaths Musicians from Vermont People from Plainfield, Vermont Wesleyan University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni Goddard College faculty