Sumarsam, McGraw Ph.D. ’06 Create Festival Focuses on Indonesian Performing Arts

Ethnomusicologist Sumarsam, University Professor of Music, and Andy McGraw Ph.D. ’06, now an associate professor at the University of Richmond, have been working with the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Smithsonian Institution to organize and design a festival and conference on Indonesian performing arts. The festival will be held in the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, Oct. 31-Nov. 3.

The Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble will participate in the festival and Sumarsam will deliver the keynote address on “Traditional Performing Arts of Indonesia in a Globalizing World” on Nov. 2. Sumarsam will discuss Javanese musical and cultural interactions with the rest of the world, focusing on current trends in and the changing role of classical and contemporary gamelan music and other genres in Indonesia and around the globe.

The event will offer family-friendly talks and events on painting shadow puppets, Indonesian music, Indonesian dance, a Javanese show play, gamelan marathons and more. See the full schedule online here.