Ensemble Schedule
Wednesdays starting on October 2nd at 6PM at IBC – 1619 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19148
About the Project
The Philadelphia Folklore Project has recently identified the Indonesian community – concentrated in South Philadelphia – as a community with which we would like to develop deeper relationships and establish some collaborative programs. PFP, along with Modero and Company is holding a ten-week series of lessons in Balinese gamelan angklung (percussion orchestra) in the fall of 2019. This will be the first opportunity ever for this eight-year-old dance company to nurture local live musical accompaniment, which is so central to the traditional performance practice.
This ten-week series will be taught by Tom Whitman. Composer and musician Thomas Whitman first studied Indonesian music as a Luce Scholar in Bali in 1986-7 under Balinese master musician I Madé Gerindem. Whitman subsequently earned a Ph.D. in Music from the University of Pennsylvania, and has continued to study Balinese music on numerous research trips to Indonesia as well as with his current teacher in the United States, I Nyoman Suadin. Whitman has taught at Swarthmore College since 1990. There he founded Gamelan Semara Santi, the Philadelphia area’s only Indonesian gamelan in 1997, and he has co-directed it ever since. He has also served as a volunteer music teacher in elementary schools in underserved communities.
