Ô Bali: Colin McPhee and His Legacy

American gamelan is a movement within contemporary classical and experimental music in the United States that creates new repertoire for gamelan-style ensembles built or adapted outside Indonesia. It draws on the cyclical, layered textures of Javanese and Balinese gamelan while embracing American instrument-building, just-intonation tunings, and minimalist process techniques. Ensembles often use homemade metallophones, gongs, and resonators fabricated from aluminum, steel, and other materials, producing a shimmering, bell-like sonority that is at once Indonesian-inspired and distinctively American. Unlike traditional Indonesian genres tied to court, ritual, or theatre, American gamelan typically serves the concert stage and educational settings, favoring newly composed works, cross-cultural collaborations, and experiments that combine gamelan with Western instruments, voice, or electronics.