EVERGREEN CLUB CONTEMPORARY GAMELAN

Date: Sun, Nov 25, 2018 03:00PM
Price: $30, $27 Friends, $22.50 students and seniors

Be transported straight to the heart of West Java, Indonesia, during this captivating musical performance by Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG) with special guests, composer Ade Suparman and dancer Nurrika.

ECCG performs on the gamelan, an Indonesian collection of bronze (and sometimes bamboo) instruments including flutes, gongs, and drums. Its work is featured on film soundtracks including Antoine Fischer and The Ice Storm. ECCG composer Mychael Danna won the 2013 Oscar for Original Best Score for the Life of Pi.

During this performance ECCG celebrates its 35th anniversary as well as the 100th anniversary of the birth of its mentor, Lou Harrison. Expertly moving between traditional Indonesian and European and North American repertoires, the group’s eight Toronto-based musicians present new arrangements of Harrison’s work and premiere a new work by composer Peter Hatch.

Joining the group are two visiting artists: Sundanese composer/musician Ade Suparman and dancer/choreographer Nurrika.

For 35 years, Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan has been dedicated to transcending fear, bravely finding space for what may seem to be the unlikeliest of projects: Finding a home for the traditions of West Java in Toronto. In addition to devoting themselves to continuing those traditions, they open up the potential and possibility for the orchestral instrument via contemporary accompaniments, compositions, traditions and more.

Bios:

Founded in 1983 in Toronto, ECCG’s extensive body of “gamelan-plus” work includes guest soloists, guest ensembles, solo and ensemble dance, and media such as film, video, turntables and live acousmatic music. ECCG’s repertoire reflects a Toronto transcultural music aesthetic, intermingling sensibilities of West Java, Indonesia with that of Europe, North America and elsewhere. The group’s mission embraces the work of Indonesian composers, bridging cultural divides through music.

Instrumentalist and composer Ade Suparman was born in West Java, Indonesia into a Sundanese family. His work integrates regional traditions with global musical trends representing the rich scope of the performing arts of the Sundanese people of West Java. His compositions and performances are featured on the album Babalen, performed in the gamelan degung, a signature Sundanese ensemble type. Suparman has toured India, South Korea, the Netherlands, USA, and Canada. In 2016, he served as Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan’s artist-in-residence in Toronto. He teaches regularly in Bali for the San Diego-based Center for World Music.

Nurrika is a Sundanese choreographer, dancer and dance instructor from Bandung, West Java, Indonesia who  often performs with her husband, Ade Suparman. In addition to specializing in jaipongan, a dynamic and popular dance and music style developed in the 1980s combining movements of various Sundanese dances, and she has melded Sundanese, Balinese, and Western styles into a new form she dubbed Babalen. Her repertoire includes several rural dances of West Java, as well as Sundanese classical dance. She has taught dance in Bandung, at the Center for World Music in California since 2004, as well as at several American and Canadian universities.

Composer, music curator, and teacher, Peter Hatch has composed works in numerous genres, from orchestral and chamber music to instrumental theatre, electroacoustics and installations. His works are performed and broadcast internationally and have been featured at the ISCM World Music Days, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik, Montreal’s Espaces Improbable, the Vancouver New Music Festival, and the Vancouver Early Music Festival.