I Made Lebah (1905?-11/18/1996) was a musician and teacher from Peliatan, Ubud, Bali who taught Colin McPhee, Michael Tenzer, Evan Ziporyn and many students of Balinese music. [1] [2] He knew many of the seminal musicians and dancers from the birth of the Kebyar style. He was a co-founder of the Gunung Sari Gamelan ensemble and traveled all over the world leading performances of that group. [3]
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 offshore islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan to the southeast. The provincial capital, Denpasar, is the most populous city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the second-largest, after Makassar, in Eastern Indonesia. The upland town of Ubud in Greater Denpasar is considered Bali's cultural centre. The province is Indonesia's main tourist destination, with a significant rise in tourism since the 1980s, and becoming an Indonesian area of overtourism. Tourism-related business makes up 80% of the Bali economy.
Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones and a set of hand-drums called kendang, which keep the beat. The kemanak, a banana-shaped idiophone, and the gangsa, another metallophone, are also commonly used gamelan instruments on Bali. Other notable instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed string instrument called a rebab, and a zither-like instrument called a siter, used in Javanese gamelan. Additionally, vocalists may be featured, being referred to as sindhen for females or gerong for males.
Colin Carhart McPhee was a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist. He is best known for being the first Western composer to make a musicological study of Bali, and to develop American gamelan along with fellow composer Lou Harrison. He wrote original music influenced by that of Bali and Java, decades before such compositions that were based on world music became widespread.
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.
Kecak, alternate spellings: kechak and ketjak), known in Indonesian as tari kecak, is a form of Balinese Hindu dance and music drama that was developed in the 1930s. Since its creation, it has been performed primarily by men, with the first women's kecak group having started in 2006. The dance is based on the story of the Ramayana and is traditionally performed in temples and villages across Bali, Indonesia.
I Nyoman Windha is one of the leading musicians and contemporary composers of Balinese gamelan music. He was born at Banjar Kutri, Singapadu, Gianyar, Bali. A graduate of the National Institute of Arts (ISI) in Denpasar, Bali, Windha has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He has composed dozens of compositions for Balinese gamelan in many genres but primarily in kebyar style. His compositions, such as Puspanjali (1989), have been incorporated into the standard repertoire of Balinese performing groups and many have won awards at Bali's annual gamelan competition.
The Sasak people live mainly on the island of Lombok, Indonesia, numbering around 3.6 million. They are related to the Balinese in language and in ancestry, although the Sasak are predominantly Muslim while the Balinese are predominantly Hindu. Sasak people who practice pre-Islamic beliefs are also known as Sasak Boda in reference to the name of the Sasak people's original religion, Bodha.
Walter Spies was a Russian-born German primitivist painter, composer, musicologist, and curator. In 1923 he moved to Java, Indonesia. He lived in Yogyakarta and then in Ubud, Bali starting from 1927, when Indonesia was under European colonial rule as the Dutch East Indies.
The Balinese people are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the Indonesian island of Bali. The Balinese population of 4.2 million live mostly on the island of Bali, making up 89% of the island's population. There are also significant populations on the island of Lombok and in the easternmost regions of Java.
Ubud is a town on the Indonesian island of Bali in Ubud District, located amongst rice paddies and steep ravines in the central foothills of the Gianyar regency. Promoted as an arts and culture centre, it has developed a large tourism industry. It forms a northern part of the Greater Denpasar metropolitan area.
Hinduism is the third-largest religion in Indonesia, based on civil registration data in 2022 from Ministry of Home Affairs, is practised by about 1.69% of the total population, and almost 87% of the population in Bali. Hinduism was the dominant religion in the country before the arrival of Islam and is one of the six official religions of Indonesia today. Hinduism came to Indonesia in the 1st-century through Indian traders, sailors, scholars and priests. A syncretic fusion of pre-existing Javanese folk religion, culture and Hindu ideas, that from the 6th-century also synthesized Buddhist ideas as well, evolved as the Indonesian version of Hinduism. These ideas continued to develop during the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires. About 1400 CE, these kingdoms were introduced to Islam from coast-based Muslim traders, and thereafter Hinduism, which was previously the dominant religion in the region, mostly vanished from many of the islands of Indonesia.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a Balinese gamelan ensemble located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has been called "the finest Balinese gamelan ensemble outside of Indonesia" by Indonesia's Tempo Magazine. It performs the music and dance of Bali in many different genres of Balinese gamelan, mainly gamelan gong kebyar, gamelan angklung, gender wayang, and gamelan jegog. Past performances have also featured ensembles playing in other styles as well, including gamelan joged bumbung, gamelan semar pegulingan, kecak, gender batel, gamelan gambuh, genggong, and beleganjur. GSJ has also performed contemporary pieces featuring instruments from the Western tradition.
I Nyoman Renbang (1937–2001) was an Indonesian musician, composer, teacher and instrument maker. He is considered by many ethnomusicologists as one of the most influential Balinese musicians and composers of the twentieth century.
David Sidney George Lewiston was a London-born collector of the world's traditional music. He is best known for his recordings initially released on LP on the Explorer Series of Nonesuch Records beginning in 1967.
Dalem Segening was a king of Bali who reigned in the first half of the 17th century, his exact dating being still uncertain. He belonged to a dynasty which originated from Majapahit on Java, and ruled from the palace (puri) of Gelgel.
Gambuh is an ancient form of Balinese dance-drama. It is accompanied by musicians in a gamelan gambuh ensemble.
Gandrung is a traditional dance from Indonesia. Gandrung has many variations and is popular in Bali, Lombok, and Eastern Java among the Balinese, Sasak, and Javanese. The most popular variation is gandrung from the Banyuwangi region in the eastern peninsula of Java; thus, the city is often referred to as Kota Gandrung, or "the city of gandrung". Originally a ritual dance dedicated to the goddess of rice and fertility, Dewi Sri, it is currently performed as a social dance of courtship and love in communal and social events, or as a tourist attraction. Gandrung Sewu Festival is held at Banyuwangi annually.
Gendang beleq is a dance and music performance from Lombok island, Indonesia. It is a popular performance among the native Sasak people.
The Ubud Palace, officially Puri Saren Agung, is a historical building complex situated in Ubud, Gianyar Regency of Bali, Indonesia.
Oleg, or also known by its conventional long name Oleg Tamulilingan or Oleg Tambulilingan) is a form of traditional Balinese dance originated from the Indonesian island of Bali which featured unique dance movements that symbolizes the wild life of bumblebees, thus sometimes it is also colloquially known as 'Balinese bumblebee dance'.