World music program

expands to two days

LEWISTON – Performances by Bates and Bowdoin students, as well as a special appearance by a Balinese gamelan orchestra, will be part of World Music Weekend Saturday and Sunday, April 3 and 4, in Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Weekend performances include music from Zimbabwe and the Caribbean, but a prevalent theme of the weekend is gamelan, the percussion-based music of Bali and Java. Performers will include Bates’ own Gamelan Mawar Mekar, which plays in the Javanese tradition, and Gamelan Galak Tika from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Individual student projects are the basis for lecture-presentations Saturday afternoon and a concert Sunday evening.

The Bates gamelan ensemble, the college’s Blazing Sun Steel Orchestra and Bowdoin’s Vadzimu All-Stars, playing traditional music from Zimbabwe, appear in concert Saturday evening. Gamelan Galak Tika performs Sunday afternoon.

Here’s the schedule:

Saturday, April 3: 1 p.m., Paul Heckler, class of 2004, discusses Scottish Highland piping traditions, Olin third floor lounge; 2 p.m., Gregory Rosenthal, class of 2005, on the “ch’in,” a kind of zither, as a vehicle for communion with nature in ancient China, Olin Room 104; 3 p.m., and Alex Bushe, class of 2006, discusses rembetika, the “music of the Greek underground,” Olin Room 104

At 8 p.m. a concert will feature the Blazing Sun Steel Orchestra, Gamelan Mawar Mekar and the Vadzimu All-Stars in the Olin concert hall. The student trio Gefilte Dog will perform Brazilian and klezmer music during the post-concert reception.

Sunday, April 4: A 3 p.m. concert featuring MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika playing music of Bali in Olin concert hall

An 8 p.m. concert features the senior thesis composition of Mike Silvers, a cantata for choir and instrumental ensemble based on Brazilian folk literature and rhythms, in Olin concert hall.

“Gamelan” means “to hammer,” but the term refers to the large percussion orchestras of Java and Bali. The primary instruments are gongs, metallophones and hand drums, embellished with cymbals, vocals, bamboo flutes and spiked fiddles.

The event is open to the public at no cost. FMI: call 786-6135.