Composer, Performer, Musical Director National Concert Hall Gamelan and UCD Gamelan Orchestra
Listen and download the album and booklet from Bandcamp
Following our recent collaboration with cellist Martin Johnson and uillean piper Mark Redmond, which led to a sold-our performance at the 2025 New Music Dublin Festival, the NCH Gamelan Orchestra is delighted to release our second album, titled Confluence, out now on Farpoint Recordings.
The album is accompanied by a set of music videos produced by Irish videographer Blaise Smith. The first video to be released is my own composition, Beyond Yourself, which uses muted gongs, and the soft metal gendèr instruments, combining the slendro and pelog tuning of the gamelan, while the solo cello part unfolds an ornate melody inspired by South Indian classical music.
The album also features works by Abigail Smith, Cathy Purcell, and David Bremner. Read my interview with the RTÉ Culture website discussing the new works.
From 2025-26, I have been working on a special project with Javanese composer Anon Suneko, composing a new fusion of Javanese gamelan and Irish trad. We worked together with Irish uillean piper Mark Redmond and UCD PhD student Viktória Šinkarová for two weeks in Dublin in April 2025 to produce a full concert-length work.
The work will be premiered at the Yogyakarta International Karawitan Festival in Java in December with Suneko's gamelan students from ISI Yogya. Suneko will return to Dublin in April 2026 to perform the work with my UCD gamelan students in the National Concert Hall.
The whole project will be released as an album and music video later in 2026.
Listen and download the album and booklet from Bandcamp
Since 2022, it has been my great honour to work with legendary Irish traditional musicians Dónal Lunny and Paddy Glackin in my role as director of UCD's Traditional Music Practices group.
In April 2025, we released our debut album showcasing the achievements of the ensemble in their first three years. The album features original student compositions alongside new arrangements of traditional Irish tunes, a dance tune from Macedonia, and Paddy Glackin's slip jig The Half Century.
The title track, Seven Springs, is a brand new composition written especially for this ensemble by Dónal Lunny himself.
Following the album launch, we were invited to appear on RTÉ Radio's flagship traditional Irish music show, Céilí House, where we performed live in studio.
Listen back to the full show here.
After the NCH Gamelan Orchestra released their debut album featuring Byron Wallen (see below), this milestone has gained further recognition both nationally and internationally.
The remarkable CD launch event, in which Byron Wallen was joined on stage by His Excellency the Indonesian Ambassador, was reported on Indonesia's national TVOne News.
Closer to home, I gave an academic conference paper on the history and tuning of the NCH Gamelan at the 20th Anniversary Conference of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance in Ireland, and I spoke to Totally Dublin magazine about the album launch.
His Royal Highness the Sultan of Yogyakarta also helped us to mark our anniverary by sending the director of his Royal Palace Gamelan Musicians, Pak Sumanto, to retune the entire gamelan to a new tuning system, more closely matching that of some of the older palace gamelans.
All of this activity follows my own appearance on L.A.'s KPFK Radio last July (see more on that below).
And all of this excitement was immediately followed by the NCH Gamelan Orchestra's performance with cellist Martin Johnson and piper Mark Redmond at the New Music Dublin Festival in April, for which I was interviewed by the RTÉ Culture website (more on that project below).
To round off a busy year, we held a massive gathering of gamelan players from all across Ireland for an all-day traditional gamelan music session (known as a klenèngan, or an uyon-uyon which took place in UCD at the end of April.
The NCH Gamelan Orchestra will be performing at this year's New Music Dublin Festival with the principal cellist of Ireland's National Symphony Orchestra, Martin Johnson.
My new work, entitled Beyond Yourself, explores the new tuning system of the NCH gamelan instruments after the director of the Yogyakarta Royal Palace Gamelan Musicians, Pak Sumanto, retuned the gamelan in October 2024. The composition uses the soft metal gendèr instruments, combining the slendro and pelog tuning of the gamelan, while the solo cello part unfolds an ornate melody inspired by South Indian classical music.
Johnson will also give the world premieres of new works written especially for the occasion by composers David Bremner and Cathy Purcell (pictured). The gamelan orchestra will also be joined for this concert by the renowned Irish uillean piper Mark Redmond. And the full programme will be performed again, alongside a set of traditional Indonesian works, at our end-of year concert in the NCH in June.
Read my interview with the RTÉ Culture website discussing the new works.
PRESS RELEASE
June 2024
The NCH Gamelan Orchestra is proud to release their debut album featuring the renowned jazz trumpeter Byron Wallen.
This release celebrates the 10th Anniversary since the Sultan of Yogyakarta presented this unique collection of Indonesian gamelan instruments as a gift to the Irish people in 2014.
The music on this album represents a variety of the traditional gamelan styles and techniques unique to the region of Yogyakarta, including a number of musical features taught to the NCH ensemble specifically by visiting artists from Java, including the sultan's personal Royal Palace Musicians.
The record also includes a special field recording of a gamelan gong being built in Java in 2013, recorded by ensemble director Dr. Peter Moran.
Byron Wallen features on an original composition by Peter Moran entitled "Embat", which was inspired by the sounds of the gamelan being built. Originally written for the ensemble's inaugural concert during the sultan's 2014 visit, it is rearranged here for Byron Wallen especially for this release.
The album download includes a pdf of a 44-page commemorative booklet detailing the remarkable story of these instruments. The booklet gives an account of how the instruments were built, and the sultan's royal visit to Dublin; it tells the stories of the orchestra's concerts in Ireland and in Java, and the Indonesian reaction to those concerts, with photos documenting the whole journey.
A limited-edition 10th-Anniversary Commemorative CD is also available from Bandcamp in a beautiful sliding matchbox-style presentation box containing a full-colour print of the booklet.
In July 2024 in LA I stopped by the KPFK radio studio where I was interviewed by the Grammy-award winning guitarist John Schneider. Our conversation ranged across my recent work, from our NCH Gamelan album release with Byron Wallen to my most recent choral compositions.
In Spring 2024 I appeared on the Creative Futures Academy's Makers and Creators Podcast to talk about teaching songwriting, my most memorable performances, and my own creative journey.
I was delighted to be participating in two fantastic initiatives organised by Ireland's Contemporary Music Centre.
The Choral Sketches project was an exclusive opportunity for three selected composers to develop their choral writing skills by working with Paul Hillier and Chamber Choir Ireland. For my participation, I composed a new work called Mantra, which came out of my own meditation practise, and which received a beautiful performnce by CCI at the New Music Dublin Festival in April.
I discussed the work and its performance on the CMC's podcast, Amplify, which you can listen to here (from 6'30-12'00").
Event: Yogyakarta International Karawitan Festival
Keynote Speech: The Resonance of Karawitan
Venue: ISI Yogyakarta, Java
Event: Yogyakarta International Karawitan Festival
World Premiere: Archipelago
for gamelan and uilleann pipes
Performers: ISI Gamelan Orchestra, Anon Suneko, Mark Redmond
Venue: ISI Yogyakarta, Java
Event: Oxford New Music Weekend
Performance: Bonang Quartets Nos.1&2
Performers: Hammer & Bronze Contemporary Gamelan Ensemble
Venue: The Pavilion, St Hilda's College, Oxford
Irish Premiere: Archipelago
for gamelan and uilleann pipes
Performers: UCD Gamelan Orchestra, Anon Suneko, Mark Redmond, Paddy Glackin
Venue: National Concert Hall, Dublin
Event: Kaleidoscope Night
Performers: NCH Gamelan Orchestra
Venue: Bello Bar, Dublin
Event: Indonesian Music and Dance Concert
Performers: NCH Gamelan Orchestra, Sanggar Tari Irlandia-Indonesia
Venue: National Concert Hall, Dublin
