Fired Up About Gamelan (Sunday People)

First published in New Sunday Times
21 July 2008

Fired up about gamelan
MAX KOH

After 11 years, contemporary gamelan troupe Rhythm in Bronze has snagged four awards at the recent BOH Cameronian Awards and finally got its own gamelan set. MAX KOH talks to the women of bronze

JUST like the unwavering tone that is made when the ‘gamel’ (hammer) hits the bronze bowl, the women performers have kept their eyes on an unswerving artistic goal since Rhythm in Bronze was started in 1997 – to make good music for today’s audiences.

Their joy and passion for the music are reflected in their eyes and the way they play the music.

Relentless. Poetic. Graceful, yet powerful.

RiB was incepted by Sunetra Fernando (currently on sabbatical) in 1997. A former lecturer at University of Malaya, she got her friends together to form a new kind of gamelan performance, one which brought the traditional instrument to a contemporary concert stage.

Fusing traditional Javanese, Malay and Sundanese musical elements, they brought the instruments to new audiences by commissioning the works of local composers such as Hardesh Singh, Saidah Rastam, Michael Veerapen, Mond Nasir Hashim, Jillian Ooi, Susan Sarah John, Ben Pasaridu (Indonesia), Gareth Farr (New Zealand) and Sunetra herself.

Through much hard work and toil, the RiB has managed to carve a niche following in the local music scene with its brand of contemporary gamelan music.

The women write and play new compositions for the instruments as well as fuse it with theatre for a different kind of musical experience.

After 11 years, the group has finally got its own gamelan set, sponsored by the HSBC in the Arts programme.

I met RiB at its weekly practice session in Kuala Lumpur recently. The room was filled with an assortment of gamelan instruments.

RiB spokesman Sharmini Ratnasingam quickly apologises: “I’m so sorry that it’s stuffy in here. We are just temporarily using this place to store our instruments thanks to a friend.”

All around the room were the shiny new instruments: the gongs (ah, the big bronze plate that lets out a big boom when hit), the gambang (xylophone), the suling (bamboo flute), celampung (plucked zither), demang, slentem and saron (metallopohones, on which I had the pleasure of playing with the ladies after the interview. Big smile and achievement for me).

My eyes traced the intricate designs carved on the wood instruments. They seem to leap out of the wood as the music emanated from the metal.

Seated around the room were other RiB members including Adilah Junid, Christine Yun-May Yong, and musical directors Seow Lai Fong and Susan.

The room was small and hot, but that did not douse the high spirits of the troupe.

“Having our own gamelan set is truly a pride and joy for the group,” says Sharmini.

“It certainly makes practice much easier for us as we had limited time to practice when borrowing other people’s establishments and instruments to perform.”

“Now we can have a say on what we want to do in our performances,” adds Yun, the youngest addition to the troupe, with a beam.

The new gamelan set was specially commissioned by the ensemble when Sharmini and Sunetra went to Solo, Indonesia to meet the gamelan makers.

“There are no gamelan makers in Malaysia and also no ready-made ones sold in stores.

“Following tradition, we had to travel to Solo to specially commission a gamelan set to be made and that is truly our own. No two gamelan sets are alike,” explains Sharmini.

It took several months for the gamelan set to be completed before it was sent to Kuala Lumpur. So are the women excited?

“It had been two years since we got the money before we finally decided to get our own gamelan set. We were a bit nervous. The excitement slowly sank in when the instruments finally made their way here,” recalls Sharmini.

Susan adds: “I guess the climax happened during our first rehearsals with our new instruments. It was like, wow, they are finally here and they are ours!”

Although RiB’s style is contemporary, the troupe had a traditional buka panggung (opening) ceremony at UM’s Department of Southeast Asian Studies in May.

“We had Pak Nasir (a renowned wayang kulit practitioner) bless our instruments,” recalls Sharmini, smiling. “Then we performed for the first time with our new instruments for an audience.”

With their new gamelan set, the women are ready to further explore musical boundaries and create ground-breaking performances.

In the works is a three-year plan where RiB plans to restage Alih Punggong in the international arena and another music concert, Gamelan Myths, by the end of the year — if there is enough funding.

Coming up soon is the Terengganu World Gamelan Festival next month and also the Rhythm in Bronze in the Community Project for Abused Women.

“Hopefully, we will be able to come up with a second album in the future,” adds Sharmini.

RiB’s first album called Rhythm In Bronze – New Music for the Malaysian Gamelan was released in 2001 and featured original compositions by local composers such as Sunetra, Veerapen, Tan Sooi Beng and Suhaimi Mohd Zain.

RiB’s music spring from diverse collaborative collaborations: Malay, Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Carnatic music, Chinese percussions, Malay and Sufi poetry.

Its achievements are the successful development of a new repertoire, regular concert series, the production of its first CD, and the ensemble’s use of contemporary theatre.

RiB has collaborated with Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) associate conductor Kevin Field and The Song Company’s Roland Peelman from Australia.

In 2005, RiB received three BOH Cameronian Awards — Best Group Performance (Instrumental), Best Group Performance (Voice), Best Musical Direction, for the Wujud Antara concert at the Dewan Philharmonik Petronas.

That year, RiB worked with the late thespian Datuk Krishen Jit to create the first gamelan music theatre — a new form of theatrical performance solely by gamelan musicians — called Monkey Business.

The 2007’s Alih Punggong continued to explore the new form and helped RiB bag another four awards at the 2007 BOH Cameronian Awards — Best Group Performance (Instrumental), Best Musical Direction, Best Original Composition and Best Production Value.

With a new gamelan set in hand, rest assured that we will be hearing more from the women with instruments of bronze.