The gamelan is a particular type of gong chime ensemble that's found in Indonesia.
The gamelan at University of New South Wales was made especially for us
by Bona Alit from the regency of Gianyar in Bali.
And its a particular type of tuning that is unique to this particular village
so we are probably the only institution in Australia that has a gamelan of this type.
The gamelan is actually becoming increasingly important in music institutions all around the world.
It teaches people how to play in an ensemble and how to play in an ensemble
in very precise and exact ways as well as learning the music of another culture.
The important thing about learning music in its original context or in its native setting
is that it gives you an understanding of how the music works for the people that create it.
It gives you an understanding of let us say, the taste of the music, the accent of the music.
It's like learning a language.
You get so much more out of it when you're immersed in it, when you're immersed in the culture.
Obviously with the people that we're learning from it's so much better to just see what they do and
learn from ear and use all those skills that you don't really use at home.
When we went to Bali in 2014 on our first field trip
we were fortunate to have met the Australian Consul General.
So out of that conversation came the invitation from the Governor of Bali
to perform at the 2015 Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar.
It created something quite different and the Balinese were really taken
by having heard a saxophone played within their ensemble.
They'd never heard it before, especially when it came from someone as wonderful as Sandy Evans.
We've had violin and cello in our performances.
We've had Balinese performing with us their musical instruments, their dancers.
It was just amazing, I loved it. Very elaborate, the dancers looked incredible.
I play the violin at the first piece in Momeng and so I was pretty nervous about that initially
actually when I first came here because I had never done any improvisation on my violin before...
...in fact, really on anything.
But you know, after a couple of practices here, I was feeling much more confident
and I'm really happy that I played the violin and I think it worked really well with the piece.
It was really gratifying to see the students perform at their very best.
It brought out all the excellence in them. They're wonderful performers by nature
but to be engaged in another culture and meet that on their own terms and on Balinese terms was wonderful.
I can't really describe how it makes you feel.
You just are warm in your heart, I don't know. I just had the best time that night.
I would never have dreamed ever that I would be in Bali playing at their Arts Festival
with all of these you know, renowned musicians.
It's just incredible, like thinking about it gives me goosebumps.
The idea of the puppets as fish came about from this piece called Maslasti
which is the final piece of music that was played at the Bali Arts Festival.
Malasti is a piece about a ceremony where people go from the city down to the ocean
and it's a ceremony about purification and connection to the environment around them.
and from that we took away this metaphor of the ocean as the thing that both connects
Indonesia and Australia but also separates us.
Cultural exchange is important in many ways.
I think it's particularly important in Australia's situation given that Indonesia is probably
our most important geopolitical neighbour, it's important for us to be actively involved in
understanding our neighbours and bringing that understanding back here to Australia.