New music for the luminous, bell-like tones of Javanese gamelan instruments, together with violin, cello, and shakuhachi.

8 MP3 Songs in this album (64:03) !
Related styles: WORLD: Gamelan, CLASSICAL: Minimalism

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Details:
In 1993, captivated by the luminous, bell-like sonorities of the Javanese gamelan orchestra, Bill Alves moved to Yogyakarta, Java and studied this famous tradition. There he commissioned metallophones and gongs tuned to his own just intonation tuning system, which, back in the United States, became the HMC American Gamelan. Since then, Alves has forged new sonic alloys of Indonesian traditions, American minimalism, lyrical melody, and dense polyrhythms. Also featured with the gamelan on this recording are Rachel Vetter Huang, violin; Roger Lebow, cello; Linda Michelou, percussion; and Bill Shozan Schultz, shakuhachi. More information about the recording is available at www.billalves.com/imbal-imbalan.html.

Bill Alves is a composer, video artist, and writer in Southern California. In addition to directing the HMC American Gamelan, he co-directs MicroFest, the annual festival of music in alternate tunings, and teaches at the Claremont Colleges. He is the author of Music of the Peoples of the World (Cengage/Schirmer) among other works.