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Nusantara Arts Press Release & Photo
Nusantara Arts is thrilled to welcome master Indonesian musician and teacher Heri Purwanto to Western New York. Purwanto will be in Buffalo for five months, working with Nusantara Arts’ inclusive community classes, world-class performance ensemble, and free refugee youth programs at Buffalo String Works.
"Buffalo is incredibly lucky to have a world-class musician like Heri here in residence for five months,” Nusantara Arts Executive Director Matt Dunning said. “He will be bringing a spark of energy, positivity, and musical brilliance to the Indonesian community that we are going to be sharing with our entire Buffalo community."
Purwanto, a highly respected teacher, performer, and master musician of Javanese gamelan, comes from a family of musicians in Wonogiri, Central Java. After graduating from the college level academy (now Institut Seni Indonesia) in Surakarta, Central Java, at the top of his class in 2000, he taught gamelan at the University of California-Berkeley from 2001-04. He directed the Berkeley-based ensemble Gamelan Sari Raras.
Since returning to Java in 2004, Heri has continued his work as an artist, building and running an arts studio in his community, as well as performing as a musician throughout Indonesia, and in Singapore, Thailand, China and across the U.S. He has been a visiting artist in the ethnomusicology program at the University of Washington in 2011 and 2014, and has performed with the Seattle-based ensemble Gamelan Pacifica. From 2014-16, he taught gamelan at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he was in residence on a Fulbright award during the 2014-15 year.
Gamelan is an umbrella genre of many different melodically focused percussion ensembles from Indonesia spanning over a thousand years. Gamelan music has developed and spread over thousands of islands in the archipelago of Nusantara (modern-day Indonesia), with many distinct ensembles, music theories and styles. Nusantara Arts teaches and performs gamelan music from the islands of both Bali and Java on six unique sets of instruments.
Purwanto will be teaching the upcoming beginner Javanese I class at Nusantara Arts starting Feb. 16. Classes are held at 490 Lafayette Ave., in the Elmwood Village, and are offered on a sliding scale – ensuring participants of any economic status can join. For more information, visit nusantaraarts.com
Nusantara Arts is a nonprofit organization committed to preserving and celebrating the rich, vibrant cultural heritage of Indonesia in Western New York and beyond. It creates expansive experiences through Indonesian music and performing arts.