WESTERN TO PRESENT
GAMELAN RECITAL

CULLOWHEE – Western Carolina University's most unusual musical group, the WCU Low Tech Ensemble, will perform its spring concert on Tuesday, April 19, at 8 p.m.

The concert will take place in the recital hall of the Coulter Building. It is free and open to the public. The ensemble will perform traditional and contemporary pieces for Balinese gamelan angklung and Sundanese gamelan degung. The “all-bamboo” angklung ensemble also will be featured.

A gamelan is an orchestra of tuned percussion instruments that consists mainly of gongs, zithers and xylophones. The instruments that make up a gamelan originated in Indonesia and coastal Southeast Asia.

Will Peebles, Western professor of music, will lead the ensemble. Western is home to three types of gamelan: gamelan angklung from Bali, gamelan degung from West Java, and a central Javanese court gamelan in slendro tuning.

A group of dance students, under the direction of dance instructor Amy Dowling, will be performing with the ensemble. Alan Mattingly, Western associate professor of music, also will join the group for a performance of Lou Harrison's “Main Bersama-Sama” (Playing Together) for horn and gamelan.

Gamelans are indigenous to Indonesia and other cultures of Southeast Asian. The Balinese gamelan angklung plays a four-toned scale in intricate repeating patterns.

For more information, call Will Peebles at (828) 227-3258 or contact him via e-mail at wpeebles@wcu.edu .