For many, the shimmering, hypnotic tones of the gamelan are intimately tied to the vibrant culture of Indonesia. But thanks to an extraordinary gift from the Sultan of Yogyakarta in 2014, Ireland has its own NCH Gamelan Orchestra, bringing the rich tradition of Javanese gamelan to Dublin audiences.
Now, as part of New Music Dublin 2025, the orchestra is set to unveil a performance that blends the gamelan’s resonances with 'cello - and Ireland’s own Uilleann pipes.
Directed by Peter Moran, the performance will feature world premieres of new pieces for Gamelan, cello and pipes by Peter and also by fellow Irish composers David Bremner, Abigail Smith, and Cathy Purcell.
Ahead of the festival, we caught up with Peter to discuss the evolving journey of gamelan in Ireland’s capital, and what audiences can expect from this one-of-a-kind musical encounter.
Most people associate gamelan with Indonesia, not Dublin! Can you tell us a little about how Dublin came to have its own gamelan and what makes these instruments so special?
I first approached the NCH with the idea of establishing a Dublin gamelan back in 2011, after returning from many years of studying gamelan and composition in the UK. And when the Indonesian Ambassador heard what I was trying to do, he offered to help.
He told me that the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono X, had been known to gift entire gamelan orchestras to prestigious cultural institutions around the world. So when the sultan heard that Ireland's National Concert Hall was seeking to establish a gamelan, he generously offered to have the entire orchestra of instruments built and shipped over. Not only that, but he then offered to come to Ireland with his personal orchestra of palace musicians to perform the traditional gamelan naming ceremony here in Dublin! That was a really special experience.
What can audiences expect from this particular performance in NMD, especially those who may be hearing gamelan for the first time?
The gamelan is an orchestra of bronze gongs and metallophones, some deep and loud, some small and delicate, plus a few softer instruments such as the bamboo flute (suling) and the wooden xylophone (gambang), and all directed from a set of hand drums called kendhang. The music is traditionally made up of interlocking rhythms moving in great cyclical structures.
But such a large assortment of instruments offers a composer great scope for all kinds of compositional techniques and textures. It is said that there is no experimental idea a Western composer can dream up for the gamelan that hasn't already been explored by an Indonesian composer. The pieces presented in this concert will run the gamut from being very traditional Indonesian, to very traditional Irish, to being utterly unrelated to either!
This performance brings together the gamelan with Uilleann pipes and cello—three instruments deeply rooted in different traditions. What was it like for you - as composer and as performer - to bring all these very different musical worlds together? What are the challenges, and what are the joys of doing so?
One of the first challenges a composer must face when mixing these traditions is the fact that gamelan instruments employ their own unique tuning system, two scales known as slendró and pélog, which are completely unrelated to our own Western tuning system. And every gamelan is handmade according to the builder’s own tastes, so there is absolutely no tuning standard. In fact, as part of our 10th Anniversary celebrations in 2024, the sultan sent over the director of his palace musicians to re-tune our entire gamelan. Hundreds and hundreds of individual bronze bars and gongs were reworked by hand, and so they sound completely different now compared to when they arrived just over 10 years ago.
As a cellist, Martin can always adjust his intonation to match the fine tuning of the gamelan, but this is not the case on the uillean pipes. Thankfully we found that our newly-retuned gamelan is a closer match to certain Western scales now than it used to be, so Mark only had to replace the chanter on his uilllean pipes to find scales better suited to our gamelan.
There are other significant differences, like the fact that gamelan doesn’t use western music notation, but it has its own system of numbers and symbols known as kepatihan. And the strong beat in gamelan music is the last beat, not the first beat, and so the music begins at the end. For all of these reasons, it can be tricky to make sure all the parts align!
Truth be told, I have been grappling with these remarkably niche problems for over 20 years. So it wasn’t so much of a challenge for me, but as the director, I was able to offer the other composers some guidance with regards to the various pitfalls and solutions, and we workshopped a lot of the ideas with the full ensemble in the gamelan room too. I love to see more composers studying these fascinating challenges head on, which I hope will lead to a lot more new music being written for the gamelan in the future!
The festival will premiere several brand-new works written especially for this concert. What kind of inspiration or ideas did the composers bring to the table?
For my composition Beyond Yourself, I wanted to explore our new gamelan tuning by combining the two Indonesian scales, slendró and pélog, using only the softest instruments in the ensemble, the gendèr. The melodic writing in the cello draws on the ornamental style of Indian classical music, which I used to play for many years. And the particular Indian raga which it is based on is the same one found in the Beatles’ Within You Without You, which gives the piece its title.
Abigail Smith put the uillean pipes front-and-centre in her piece, composing a beautiful melody on the pipes accompanied by a simple gamelan part, written in the traditional Indonesian style, and ending with a very fast and lively traditional piece called the gangsaran.
David Bremner also draws heavily on the traditional gamelan style in his writing, but he is exploring ideas of overlapping cycles of 5-beats against 4-beats, as well as "isorhythms", where pitches and rhythms can progress through simultaneous cycles independently. It sounds really impressive and effective when the full ensemble comes together through these large cycles.
David has also prepared a gentle arrangement of the traditional air Amhrán na Leabhar, which Mark will play on the pipes. And the concert will close with Cathy Purcell’s tuneful and minimalist-inspired Resonant Flow, with the cello accompanied by gentle tapping and soft mallets on the gamelan.
This marks a big year for the Gamelan in NCH, celebrating its 10th anniversary and releasing an album. What’s next? Are there more collaborations and performances on the horizon?
Yes, releasing our debut album last year with jazz trumpeter Byron Wallen was a landmark occasion for us. I was particularly pleased to release a physical CD with an accompanying booklet so I could tell the story of how the gamelan was built, and the sultan’s visit, and our experiences performing in Java, and so on. And there was a great moment at the launch event in the NCH when the Indonesian Ambassador got up on stage to jam on the sax with Byron Wallen. That unique moment made the news back in Indonesia! The album is available now from nchgamelan.bandcamp.com.
And what’s next? Well, if you didn’t manage to get a ticket for the New Music Dublin concert, we will be inviting Mark and Martin to perform with us again in the NCH on June 3rd. Tickets are on sale now.
And very excitingly, we are planning to record an EP featuring all of these new compositions for cello and uillean pipes, which will be coming out this summer.
After that, I will be working on a new collaboration with an Indonesian composer and gamelan director who is scheduled to visit Ireland later this year, before I head to Java to perform with him there, so keep an eye out for updates on that project. Follow us on Instagram @NCHGamelan
And in the meantime, there are beginner classes in the NCH on Tuesday evenings for anyone who just wants to come and learn how to play!
The NCH Gamelan Orchestra with Martin Johnson and Mark Redmond present the world premiere of Uilleann Pipes, Cello & Gamelan at the National Concert Hall on Saturday 5th April 2025 at 10.30am - find out more here.
