Robert E. Brown Center for World Music video premiere celebrates I Ketut Gede Asnawa & Family
The Robert E. Brown Center for World Music celebrates I Ketut Gede Asnawa & family with a video premiere of new Balinese music and dance on Saturday, May 1, 2021. Ensembles featured in this program include the University of Illinois Balinese Gamelan Ensemble, Chicago Balinese Gamelan, Gamelan Genta Kasturi (Kansas City, MO) and Gamelan Tunas Mekar / Pak Yeh Trio (Denver, CO). The premiere will be available on the center’s YouTube page at 1pm, May 1.
Here is a link to the video: https://youtu.be/qZEYXiJn-rg
An award-winning composer and gamelan master, I Ketut Gede Asnawa has been a Visiting Professor of Musicology and director of the Balinese Gamelan ensemble at the University of Illinois since 2006. He received the prestigious Dharma Kusuma Art Award and Gold Medal in 2017 from the Governor of Bali in recognition of his lifelong dedication and contribution to Bali’s culture of arts, most notably in gamelan music. In 2013 Asnawa was acknowledged for his outstanding contribution in celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia, and his talent as a cutting-edge composer and innovator in Balinese music was recognized in Grove Music Online.
Announcing his retirement after fourteen years of instruction at the University of Illinois, Asnawa has significantly enriched campus and community students, educators, musicians, and audiences with a dedicated focus on Balinese Performing Arts and Culture, along with an openness of bridging tradition with modern compositional techniques and cross-cultural collaboration. Throughout Asnawa’s instruction at the University of Illinois, the gamelan community benefited from the dedicated contributions in dance and performance from his wife Putu Oka Mardiani Asnawa, and daughters Niastarika Asnawa, Yonitika Asnawa and Yunirika Asnawa.
The Robert E. Brown Center for World Music is tremendously grateful for the opportunity to support I Ketut Gede Asnawa during these many years of instructing the School of Music ensemble class and community gamelan. The center is pleased to present a video premiere of performances celebrating Asnawa’s broad reach of influence and support of Balinese Gamelan communities in the United States.