HSU Music Department Director of Percussion Studies Eugene Novotney calls them “an outstanding group that mixes world music from Asia, Africa and the Middle East into exciting interlocking rhythms, haunting melodies and a deep and funky groove. Gamelan X is the perfect show for a Humboldt audience.”
According to the group’s web site Gamelan X draws musical inspiration from Indonesian, Balkan, African, Indian and American traditions. Instruments used include dozens of small and large gongs (central to the gamelan tradition of Indonesia), plus wind and string instruments, synthesizers, drums and percussion. Their shows include group choreography and crowd interaction to take audiences “on a journey through a wide range of exotic musical spaces.”
Gamelan X comes to HSU at the tail-end of a Northwest and Northern California tour, trailing clouds of a glorious press. Todd LaVoie in the SF Bay Guardian describes their music as “trance-inducing rhythms pinballing between Balinese gongs…This formidable primitive-futurist improvisational collective of epic proportions bashes out Indonesian marching music made for dance clubs yet to be conceived.”
“Gamelan X is a precision-guided tour de force of rhythm, sounds, theater and performance art,” said Evan Levy, Director of Art in Freedom Park in Atlanta, Georgia. “Think Cirque du Soleil meets Sun Ra, and you won’t want to miss them.”
“Gamelan X literally stopped the show,” said the director of the 2005 Arts Expo Gala in San Francisco. “Our guests were mesmerized by the pageantry, energy and authentic ritual. It was like nothing they’d seen before.”
Gamelan X performs on Saturday, March 8 at 8 p.m. in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets $8 general, $3 student/senior from HSU ticket office (826-3928) or at the door. HSU students free with ID. This concert is co-sponsored by the HSU Department of Music, the HSU Diversity Program Funding Committee, the HSU Percussion Ensemble and Gamelan Sekar Sequoia. Visit the HSU Music blog for more information.