Over the past seven years, The Buffalo Gamelan Club, now Nusantara Arts, has been joyfully inviting our community to experience and participate in the beautiful world of Indonesian gamelan music, arts and culture. While practicing our values of the preservation of our craft, we have continued to expand and refine our own work.
At its face, the idea of a new era for an organization dedicated to the tradition of gamelan seems counterintuitive. The launch of our 2023-2025 Strategic Plan signaled the start of a new era in our development. This plan reflects our commitment to evolving our organization into a sustainable and long-lasting cultural institution; our new era is rooted in tradition and looking towards a bright future.
This year, Nusantara Arts:
- Began to study and practice the beautiful musical traditions of Bali. Our community is having fun learning this new material and we are seeing many friendly new faces.
- Have welcomed our Visiting Artist, Gusti Komin. Komin has been a vital addition to our community this year, visiting Buffalo twice per month to lead our Balinese gamelan rehearsals. Komin hails from Pengosekan village on the island of Bali and comes from a line of family musicians.
- Began a collaboration with Buffalo String Works to bring Javanese gamelan music to 30 young students who would otherwise not have the opportunity to play any music at all.
- Performed in five Grassroots Gardens around the city of Buffalo. This program helps communities activate and use their beautiful gardens to their fullest, and brings the music of gamelan into spaces where people may otherwise have barriers to entry for seeing world music or other kinds of art.
- Continued our ongoing performances, classes and community building including 4 wayang kulit performances with KRT Midiyanto from Berkeley California.
We have a goal to raise $10,000 by the end of 2023. Will you join us in Nusantara Arts’ new era by becoming a member and supporter today?
Your gift to Nusantara Arts will support our ongoing work of gamelan music education programming, worldwide gamelan preservation and support our immensely talented and dedicated team devoted to Indonesian culture and gamelan music in our community and around the world.
Another option for giving: Buy a ticket to our upcoming December16th debut Balinese music and dance performance (details below). On the ticket page you will be able to make a donation in addition to your ticket purchase!
From all of us, we thank you for joining us along our journey and look forward to seeing you down the path.
With love and gratitude,
Matt Dunning
Executive Director Nusantara Arts