M.M. (ethnomusicology), University of Maryland – Baltimore County.
The composer, performer, and scholar I Ketut Gede Asnawa was born in 1955 in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. He has taught Balinese music at the Indonesian College of the Arts (STSI) and the High School of Performing Arts (KOKAR), both in Denpasar, since 1980. His compositions have been featured at prestigious events such as the Festival of Young Composers in Jakarta and the annual Bali Arts Festival. Recently, his talent as a cutting-edge composer and innovator in Balinese music was recognized in Grove Music Online.
A master gamelan musician, Asnawa has toured Europe, the United States, and Asia. A demanding but charismatic teacher, he has taught gamelan groups at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (where he earned a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology), Université de Montréal, Eastman School of Music, University of Missouri Kansas City, Florida State University, Texas Woman’s University, Richmond University, Illinois Wesleyan University, Gettysburg College, Miami University at Oxford, OH, as well as private gamelan groups Giri Kusuma in Woodstock, NY, Sekar Jaya, CA, Genta Semara, Kansas City, MO, Indonesian Performing Arts Chicago, Chicago Balinese Gamelan, and the Netherlands.
In 2013, he received recognition from the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in Chicago, in regards to an outstanding contribution celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia. In 2017, he received the Dharma Kusuma Art Award and Gold Medal from the Governor of Bali in recognition of his lifelong dedication and contribution to Bali’s culture of arts, most notably in gamelan music. Since Fall 2006, he has taught various styles of Balinese gamelan as a faculty member in the School of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).