A hammer, a clamor, a jam: Gamelan!

On November 21, a unique ensemble of modern traditionalists played to a crowd that packed the eclectic White Lotus Gallery space above Raritan Avenue. Over a hundred people, young and old, turned out for an evening meal and musical presentation by the New York City-based Gamelan Son of Lion Orchestra.

 

The newly renovated gallery in downtown Highland Park has a warehouse feel befitting its origins as a 19th century knitting factory. White Lotus Home, a furnishings maker and retailer who rents the building, has decorated the space with local artists’ work on the walls and floor. Use of the space was donated by building owner Eric Weinberg and White Lotus Home for the fundraising concert.

Gamelan orchestras date back to the 12th century Java, and are defined by the instruments involved rather than the individual musicians.  The customary Gamelan comprises many instruments, grouped and tuned together, and viewed as one entity rather than a collection.

There are close to 100 Gamelan orchestras across the United Stated and Son of Lion is one of the oldest, formed in New York City in 1976.  The group is a world music composers' collective, with a commitment to democracy in the selection of performance pieces by members and guests.  Son of Lion produced a funky and eminently enjoyable blend of world music, percussive fusion, and more traditional music from Java, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe just to name a few.Their instruments are handmade using cans, hubcaps, steel keys and PVC pipes mimicking classic Javan style.  The eleven-person band played a wide array of instruments, from large suspended gongs, drums, clarinets made from PVC, other homemade instruments, as well as the flute and violin.

 

Son of Lion opened with a Balinese processional, playing as the orchestra slowly wound through the crowd to the stage.  "Welcome Slendro Clarinet" used the Slendro scale, which is a pentatonic scale common in Indonesian music, and featured a PVC clarinet also in Slendro tuning.  Played in descending order the music took on a circular tolling, modeled after the ringing of bells.

A real treat came during the group's performance of "Abweja", which mixed Zimbabwean sounds (hence the 'Abwe') with rhythms from Java.  Son of Lion replicated the traditional Zimbabwean marimba sound with industrial cardboard tubes, producing clear, distinct notes on the jury-rigged xylophone.

The show was a fundraising event presented by Artists Now, a Highland Park non-profit whose mission is to get world-class artists into borough schools.  Board member Kim Hammond noted that earlier in the week, Son of Lion had performed for the borough’s primary and elementary students -- the 21st group brought into HP schools over six years of organizing by Artists Now.

Because of the district’s chronically tight program budgets, these twenty-one artists and groups comprise all the visits by persons in the arts that the borough schools have enjoyed over the six years, Hammond said.