Skip to main content

Cornell University

Gamelan at Cornell

New Course

MUSIC 2130 Collaborative Creativity

with guest instructor Gondrong Gunarto, freelance composer and musician from Indonesia, and Senior Lecturer Christopher J. Miller

Mondays, 4:45–6:35pm
Spring 2024, 7 week 2 (March 18 through May 6)

Make music with your friends, or make new ones through making music together!

In this course, you will engage in the the collaborative processes of creation common to so many musical genres. Highlighting the expertise of the guest instructor, composer and gamelan musician Gondrong Gunarto, this iteration of the course emphasizes the fusion of elements from traditional Southeast Asian musics with popular idioms and other contemporary forms of expression. This is one example of what that might sound like.

Prior formal musical training is not required; proficiency on one or more musical instruments is, and engagement with a Southeast Asian musical tradition is strongly encouraged. Ways to do that include:

Gondrong Gunarto

Indonesian musician Gondrong Gunarto has cemented a reputation for deftly infusing elements of gamelan and other traditional Indonesian musics into a wide range of contemporary forms, including pop songs, dance accompaniment, and concert productions. The son of a shadow puppet master, Gondrong grew up steeped in the traditional performing arts. He pursued “outsider” music while receiving formal training in gamelan, first at the performing arts high school in Surakarta, Central Java, and then at Institute of Indonesian Arts, Surakarta, where he subsequently earned a masters degree in creative arts. Gondrong has collaborated with some of the leading choreographers and playwrights in Indonesia performing arts, but is equally dedicated to supporting his peers and younger artists through the concert series Bukan Musik Biasa (Not Ordinary Music) and the arts center Rumah Banjarsari. Especially notable with respect to the course Collaborative Creativity is his collaboration with singer/composer Susheela Raman on the critically acclaimed album Ghost Gamelan.

To learn more about Gondrong, see his CV, or visit his YouTube channel.