Nogo Abang: Javanese Ensemble

This event has ended.

Nogo Abang

Cardiff Universities Gamelan Ensemble, Nogo Abang, was founded in 2015 by Dr Jonathan Roberts and Dr Amanda Villepastour and became a much loved and respected part of music making at Cardiff. The group’s ‘career highlight’ was a tour of Central Java by twenty members of the department who both studied and performed in varied and memorable settings: royal palace, mountain tea gardens and city centre food market. After a post-Covid hiatus it is back, now under the direction of Jonathan’s long time colleague, Peter Smith with a largely new cohort of keen students and some worthy survivors of the pre-Covid days.

The Cardiff University Gamelan

The new bronze Slendro Gamelan was commissioned in the Spring of 2022 and completed in August 2022. It was made under the direction of Bp Cokrik at his workshop in the city Solo and at the forge of Bp Sutarno in the village of Jatitekan on the eastern outskirts of Solo in Central Java, Indonesia. Their brief was for a full but reduced size gamelan that could be reasonably portable and yet still pack the punch of a full scale ensemble both in terms of sound and visual impact. This performance is the first time the ensemble has been heard in public.

Events in this series

School of Music concert series

• View all events in this series