Bonang Quartet No.1 has been released as a digital single and is now available for download from Amazon and CD Baby, and iTunes, or to stream on Spotify.
Bonang Quartet No.1 was one of my first gamelan compositions and has perhaps become my most popular. Written in 2008, it was quickly performed across the UK, at the York Late Music Festival, the Buxton Music Festival, at Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music, and for the Royal Musicological Association. The following year, it was performed in Ireland's National Concert Hall as part of the Ergodos Music Festival, alongside the premiere of my Bonang Quartet No.2. This occasion was also marked by the first of several national broadcasts for the piece.
In later years, after founding the NCH Gamelan Orchestra, I had the honour of bringing my own performers to give the Indonesian premiere of the work at the 2014 Yogyakarta International Performing Arts Festival in Java. This was followed by another performance in the NCH, when the same performers presented their Indonesian programme in Dublin. More recently, Bonang Quartet No.1 featured as the centre piece in one of the Irish Composers Collective 'In Dialogue' concerts. This involved giving talks, workshops and mentoring developing composers in how to write for gamelan. Their completed compositions were then performed alongside the quartet in a showcase concert.
Event: ICTMD Conference
Paper: “Tradisi Baru”: The NCH Gamelan Orchestra's First Ten Years
Venue: Dublin City University
Event: New Music Dublin Festival
Composition: Beyond Yourself for cello and gamelan (World Premiere with Martin Johnson)
Performers: NCH Gamelan Orchestra
Venue: National Concert Hall, Dublin
Event: UCD Trad Ensemble CD Launch
Performers: Paddy Glackin, UCD Trad Ensemble
Venue: The Sugar Club, Dublin
Event: UCD Composition Ensemble Concert
Venue: National Concert Hall, Dublin
Event: All-Ireland Gamelan Gathering
Performers: Cork, West Cork, Limerick, Belfast, NCH and UCD Gamelan Orchestras
Venue: University College Dublin
Event: NCH Gamelan Orchestra Concert
Composition: Beyond Yourself for cello and gamelan (with Martin Johnson)
Performers: NCH Gamelan Orchestra
Venue: National Concert Hall, Dublin
Event: NCH Gamelan Beginner Classes Concert
Venue: National Concert Hall, Dublin