Mathilde Barthélémy
Prune Bécheau
Gabriel Desfeux
Thibault Florent
Mark Lockett
Sven Michel
Lucas Pizzini
Julien Pontvianne
A sacred gamelan from East Bali. The eight instruments consist of four or eight heavy iron keys suspended over solid, ornately carved wooden resonators. The group play rare traditional music from the Bali Aga villages of that region, for the gods, the earthly realms, and the underworld. Ideal for outdoor situations – with or without amplification. Ketug Ketug is a Balinese onomatopoeia for a beating heart.
This gamelan salunding was brought back from Bali in the 1990s, a ‘secular’ copy of one of the sacred ensembles from Tenganan Pegringsing, and has been used for theatre productions, installation works for art galleries, community groups, on its own and with live electronics. This little-known type of gamelan is one of the oldest surviving musics from Bali.
There are various legends surrounding the gamelan salunding, but not much in the way of historical fact. Colin McPhee, in his authoritative treatise “Music in Bali” [Yale University Press 1966] recounts a story of a group of villagers by the sea hearing a music unlike any other coming from the waves. When they returned the following day to the spot where the music had been heard to make offerings, a gamelan unlike any other ever seen appeared from the water. The people waded out and carried it back to the village, but for a long time the gamelan remained silent as no one dared touch the instruments. Then one day a messenger from heaven appeared in the form of a white raven and, by its song, taught them how to play.
This gamelan salunding was brought back from Bali in the 1990s, a ‘secular’ copy of one of the sacred ensembles from Tenganan Pegringsing, and has been used for theatre productions, installation works for art galleries, community groups, on its own and with live electronics. This little-known type of gamelan is one of the oldest surviving musics from Bali.
There are various legends surrounding the gamelan salunding, but not much in the way of historical fact. Colin McPhee, in his authoritative treatise “Music in Bali” [Yale University Press 1966] recounts a story of a group of villagers by the sea hearing a music unlike any other coming from the waves. When they returned the following day to the spot where the music had been heard to make offerings, a gamelan unlike any other ever seen appeared from the water. The people waded out and carried it back to the village, but for a long time the gamelan remained silent as no one dared touch the instruments. Then one day a messenger from heaven appeared in the form of a white raven and, by its song, taught them how to play.