Soloevent.id – What if gamelan is played by foreigners? In London, England, there was a group that studied Javanese gamelan art. They are named Siswa Sukra. This community was formed by Peter Smith.
Peter Smith is a gamelan teacher in Oxford, England. Peter began studying gamelan 30 years ago. He studied with Prof. Neil Sorrell at the University of York Heslington. At that time Peter saw the gamelan instrument brought by Professor Neil. Immediately he began to be interested. By the way, Peter has a Javanese alias, namely Parto.
For 3 years (1992-1995), Peter Smith began playing gamelan. When he received the Darmasiswa scholarship provided by the Indonesian government, he had the opportunity to deepen his gamelan knowledge. Peter claimed to first fall in love with the gamelan because of its distinctive sound.
Peter aka Parto prefers gender and gambang instruments. He said this instrument was easier to understand and play than other musical instruments. Peter and his friends from Siswa Sukra traveled to various countries to teach gamelan art. They want to introduce foreigners to Indonesian gamelan art and culture.
When performing in Solo with Siswa Sukra, 2017, Peter said there were several countries that were not familiar with Javanese gamelan culture, namely Russia, Italy and Spain. In the UK gamelan art has been widely known even more than 100 gamelan performers.
This year, Siswa Sukra will return to Solo. They became one of 19 gamelan groups from abroad who performed at the 2018 International Gamelan Festival event.
