The repertoire of the Friends of the Gamelan is very rich and diverse, spanning everything from centuries-old, traditional Javanese compositions to contemporary works, some of them written by our own members. The group’s performances of modern compositions for gamelan by Lou Harrison (1927-2003) are especially notable. Who are the Friends of Gamelan? In the late 1970s, a group of musicians began to meet regularly at the Field Museum to play gamelan music on instruments brought to Chicago for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. One of the attractions on the midway was a Java Village with its own Sudanese gamelan. Never before had gamelan music been heard in the Western hemisphere. In 1980 the Friends of the Gamelan formed to acquire its own gamelan. They now have two gamelans, one named Nyai Panjang Sari or the venerable essence of gamelan music and a second named Sri Sedånå for the Hindu rice goddess Dewi Sri and her brother Sedana. Now they work with many outstanding gamelan musicians from both Java and the United States. The group also has access to the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia and its exquisite bronze gamelan. Co-Sponsored by the Kalamazoo Public Library