UC DAVIS ENSEMBLE

The UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble was established in 2006 by Henry Spiller. Students enrolled in the class receive a practical introduction to Sundanese performing arts.

Khalis Afnan Abdul Rahman Elisa Hough Dylan Bolles Robert Koble John Brumley Nuradilla Mohamad Fauzi Michael Dorrity Fakhirah Roslan Christopher Haupt David Verbuč

UPCOMING EVENTS

We d , Ma r c h 4, 3:30 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building We d , Ma r c h 11, 7 p m , Ja c k s o n Ha l l , Mo n d a v i Ce n t e r Studio Recital: Students of Scott University Concert Band: Winds of Spring, Macomber. Works by Bach, Haydn, Hummel, Pete Nowlen, director. Works by John Philip and others. Free. Sousa, H. Owen Reed, and Charles Rochester Young. [$4/6/7 student & child, $8/12/14 adult] Th u , Ma r c h 5, 12:05 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building Noon Concert: Zoila Muñoz, mezzo-soprano, Th u , Ma r c h 12, 12:05 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building and Larisa Smirnova, piano. Spanish music. Noon Concert: Student Chamber Ensembles. Free. Works by Brahms, Mozart, and others. Free.

Su n , Ma r c h 8, 8 p m , Ja c k s o n Ha l l , Mo n d a v i Ce n t e r Th u , Ma r c h 12, 4:10 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building University Chorus, Alumni Chorus, UC Davis Student Chamber Ensembles. Works by Symphony Orchestra. Mendelssohn: Elijah, Gershwin, Haydn, Hindemith, and Caspar with Eugene Brancoveanu, baritone (Elijah); Kummer. Free. Robin Fisher, soprano; Catherine Cook, Fr i , Ma r c h 13, 3:10 p m , Ro o m 230, Mu s i c Building mezzo-soprano; and Joseph Palarca, tenor. D. Composer Colloquium: Sara Doncaster, Kern Holoman, conducting. Brandeis University. Free. [$5/7/8 student & child, $10/14/16 adult] Fr i , Ma r c h 13, 3:30 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building Tu e , Ma r c h 10, 12:05 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building Guitar Studio Recital: Students of Michael Student Chamber Ensembles. Noon Concert: Goldberg. Works by Narváez, Villa-Lobos, Works by Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Weiss, Tàrrega, Ponce, and Domeniconi. Free. Schubert, and Steve Reich. Free. Su n , Ma r c h 15, 3 p m , St. Ma r t i n ’s Ep i s c o p a l Ch u r c h , We d , Ma r c h 11, 3:30 p m , Ro o m 115, Mu s i c Building 640 Ha wt h o r n e La n e , Da v i s Senior Recital: Christina Cheng, violin, with UC Davis Early Music & Baroque Ensembles, Narmina Sultanova, piano. Works include David Nutter, Phebe Craig, Michael Sand, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major and directors. Works by Scarlatti, Corelli, Schütz, Dvorak’s Sonatina in G Major, op. 100. Free. Weckmann, and Buxtehude. [suggested donation at door only: $6 student & child, $12 adult]

The noon concert series is made possible by the generous support of Deborah Pinkerton and Bret Hewitt—alumni of UC Davis—in honor of Deborah’s mother, the late Joy M. Schinkoskey. Noon Concert

The Department of Music presents UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble Henry Spiller, director with Burhan Sukarma Rina Oesman Andrew Bouchard

PROGRAM

“Cacandran” UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble with guest artists

Tembang Sunda – selections to be announced – Rina Oesman, juru tembang (voice) Burhan Sukarma, ( ) Andrew Bouchard, indung (lead ) Henry Spiller, kacapi rincik (ornamenting zither)

“Galatik Manggut – Kembang Bungur – Reumbeuy Bandung” UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble Rina Oesman, juru kawih (voice) Burhan Sukarma, suling

12:05 pm, Tuesday, 3 March 2009 Room 115, Music Building

This concert is being professionally recorded for the University archive. Please remain seated during the music, remembering that distractions will be audible on the recording. Please deactivate cell phones, pagers, and wristwatches. Flash photography and audio and video recording are prohibited during the performance. NOTES

Indonesia is a nation with 13,000 islands (of which a few thousand are populated), the fourth largest population in the world, and hundreds of ethnic groups and languages. ’s second-largest ethnic group is the Sundanese; approximately 30 million Sundanese speakers dominate the modern province of West .

Gamelan degung—The term gamelan refers to matched sets of instruments (primarily tuned bronze percussion instruments) that are unified by appearance, manufacture, tuning, and other characteristics. Each gamelan is unique. There are several different types of gamelan in . The gamelan you hear this afternoon, called degung, consists of hanging bronze , chimes, metallophones, drums, and suling (bamboo flute) tuned to a pentatonic scale. Degung developed in the aristocratic regencies of colonial West Java to provide refined, courtly listening music. Since the 1920s, degung has evolved into a more egalitarian but distinctly Sundanese genre. The ensemble’s characteristic tuning is called degung; in western terms, pelog degung’s pitches are approximately G–F#–D–C–B.

Tembang Sunda—In the 19th century, Sundanese aristocrats cultivated the art of singing courtly poetry to the accompaniment of kacapi (18-string zither) and suling (end-blown bamboo flute) for their own entertainment. In the 20th and 21st centuries, musicians continue to cultivate tembang Sunda (as the tradition is now known) by singing both the old classical pieces as well as new compositions, called panambih (additions), in a compatible style.

In the 1920s, degung pioneers composed pieces featuring florid (one-row ) parts and irregular phrases that are now refered to as lagu klasik (classical pieces). Choral parts were added to some of these pieces in the 1950s. The words to “Cacandran” describe the beauty of the landscape of the Sundanese highlands.

In contemporary degung performance practice, it is common to string several pieces together. Although degung was originally a strictly instrumental form, since the 1950s musicians have experimented with adding voices to the texture. This suite begins with a lagu klasik (“Galatik Manggut”) followed by a panambih from the tembang Sunda repertory—”Kembang Bungur”—adapted for degung. The final piece, “Reumbeuy Bandung,” features an enchanting melody and a poem by Ibu Haji Siti Rokayah. “Reumbeuy Bandung” is a mixture of rice and other ingredients; the word heureuy in the second couplet means “to joke around,” or perhaps even to tease in a flirtatious manner. The evocative assonance between the words reumbeuy and heureuy links the first and second couplets to remind us that in teasing, words can be a double-edged sword and should be wielded with caution. ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rina Oesman began studying tembang Sunda as a child with her mother and the many singers and musicians who came to her home in Bandung, West Java, for rehearsals. In 1988, she won first place in the most prestigious tembang Sunda contest in West Java. The next year she became a member of Jugala, the renowned Sundanese performing arts group led by Gugum Gumbira and featuring the most recorded Sundanese traditional female vocalist, Euis Komariah. With Jugala she toured Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States as a singer and an instrumentalist. Oesman is unique in that she has mastered not only tembang Sunda vocals but also kacapi. She currently lives in Bandung, the capital of West Java, where she remains active in the Sundanese arts scene and works in the city’s culture and tourism department.

Burhan Sukarma was born and raised in the village of Karawang, West Java. After moving to the regional capital, Bandung, in the late 1960s, he began to study the suling. From 1972 to 1986, he was famous as principal musician at Radio Repulik Indonesia (RRI) in Bandung, and during that time he also recorded with the major Indonesian recording labels, setting new standards of virtuosity and creativity in suling playing. He has toured France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and the U.S. In the U.S., he has taught at the University of Washington, San José State University, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Berkeley and has directed Pusaka Sunda, a San José-based degung ensemble, since 1986.

Andrew Bouchard has been playing Sundanese music for longer than he hasn’t. He began playing Sundanese gamelan in 1984 at UC Santa Cruz under the direction of master drummer Undang Sumarna. In 1989, he joined Pusaka Sunda, a group led by master suling player Burhan Sukarma. From 1995 to 1998, he spent three years in West Java studying gamelan, degung, (two-string fiddle), and kacapi. After pursuing a master’s degree in ethnomusicology at the UC Santa Cruz, he returned to Bandung, West Java, in 2002, where he now resides with his wife, Rina Oesman, and their two daughters.

Henry Spiller is an ethnomusicologist whose research focuses on Sundanese music and dance. He considers performance an important part of his research and has studied with a variety of Sundanese teachers, including Undang Sumarna, Otong Rasta, Burhan Sukarma, Entis Sutisna, and Tosin Mochtar. Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries named his book Gamelan: The Traditional Sounds of Indonesia (ABC-CLIO, 2004) an Outstanding Academic Title for 2005. The second edition of the book has just been released by Routledge. At UC Davis, he is an assistant professor in the music department and directs the Sundanese gamelan ensemble.