Gamelan Kusuma Laras, the Javanese music ensemble I’ve been playing with for several years, will give a concert Saturday night at Roulette, the prestigious new-music venue in Brooklyn. Javanese gamelan is stately, meditative, polyphonic, sometimes shockingly rowdy, quite exotic and not for every taste. You can check out samples online but you can never really get a true sense of gamelan music except by experiencing it live. This concert officially begins at 8 pm but we will start playing at 7:45 with a couple of pieces traditionally used to welcome the audience. Then we’ll play three long-ish pieces, one of them composed by our music director, the phenomenal I. M. Harjito. And the show ends with a dance piece featuring guest performers Anang Totok Dwiantoro and Triwi Harjito in full costume and makeup. Check it out and let me know what you think.
another eye opens 
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