Nyi Gemi Raras

Location: Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne
Instruments: Javanese

Director: Poedijono
Contacts: Cathy Falk <Cathy_Falk@muwayf.unimelb.edu.au> (Phone: +61 3 8344 4718)
Melbourne Community Gamelan <melgamelan@hotmail.com>

Nyi Gemi Raras now has its own web site!

The University of Melbourne Faculty of Music has three gamelans. The most actively played gamelan is a full bronze slendro/pelog purchased in Madiun in 1990. It has been named Nyi Gemi Raras by our gamelan teacher, Poedijono. It is a very beautiful gamelan both in sound and appearance. Pak Poedijono takes classes for undergrad students once a week and also teaches Javanese dance and has been very active in promoting Indonesian dance and music in Melbourne for over twenty years.

This gamelan is also played by an on-going group, called "Melbourne Community Gamelan", which consists of people who are not students - and because of its on-going nature has a much more sophisticated repertoire than the student group. Performances include accompanying all night wayang performances by both Pak Poedijono and Helen Pausacker as well as dance and music performances for the public. The group has also performed at the International Gamelan Festival in Yogyakarta and at the National Folk Festival in Canberra.

We also have a gamelan degung, built in Bogor in 1988-89, which was taught for a short while in 1991 by a visiting teacher, Sukaya and came to life again in 1997 with guest teacher, Pak Abun Somawijaya from STSI Bandung. Pak Abun was invited by the Music Department of The University of Melbourne and taught students at the university as well as members of the community gamelan. The Gamelan Cirebon, first had a brief moment of life when it was used by the visiting Topeng Cirebon group during the Melbourne International Festival in 1991. This set of instruments came to life again recently under the guidance of Michael Ewing to accompany his Topeng Cirebon dance performance and hopefully will continue to be part of the group's repertoire.