A concert of gamelan music is held in the conservatory’s Oriental Music Instrument Museum.

China’s first gamelan orchestra presented a concert in the Oriental Music Instrument Museum of Shanghai Conservatory of Music on December 27, 2016.

Gamelan is a kind of traditional music in Java and Bali of Indonesia, dating back to the 15th Century. The ensemble uses predominantly percussive instruments such as metallophones played by mallets and a set of hand-played drums called kendhang. Other instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed instrument called a rebab.

French composer Claude Debussy was fascinated with gamelan at the 1889 World Expo in Paris. Hence, this music genre has heavily influenced Debussy’s works. In the eyes of Westerners, Gamelan represents Oriental music and is taught at music schools of many universities, according to a foreign professor.

Professor Gisa, a German specialist on Southeastern Asia music, began to teach gamelan at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in September 2016 with the help of the graduate school, the museum and a music fund in Hong Kong.

After one semester of study and rehearsal, the student orchestra can now perform on stage and their five melodies drew warm applauses from the audience.