Since I’m a concert Javanese gamelan performer, it was such a delight to see UCLA’s Balinese gamelan perform along with UCLA’s Persian music ensembles. My friend who went with me was a Fulbright scholar with me in Indonesia, so the performance brought back fond memories of our time together living next to a volcano on Java and studying Indonesian language (and gamelan in Solo with the masters). These days, I don’t venture out much due to the pandemic, but I made an exception for this impressive Balinese gamelan performance (as gamelan has been such a big part of my life the past two decades)! Getting to see Balinese topeng (below) again too was such a treat — how lucky we are to have access to such life-giving performing arts here in Los Angeles.
