Joko Sutrisno

Greater Los Angeles Los Angeles County Asian/Asian-American/Pacific Islander Music Oral Traditions/Language Chinese/Chinese-American Indonesian

Joko Sutrisno of Los Angeles, is an accomplished Javanese gamelan performer, composer, and educator. Joko graduated from the Indonesian Institute of Arts, Surakarta-Java in 1987. He directed the gamelan ensemble at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand for 8 years before moving to Minnesota in 1995, where he was artistic director of Sumunar Gamelan and Dance Ensemble. He was more recently appointed as a professor of gamelan at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and UC Riverside School of Music. He is also currently the consulting director for the student gamelan ensembles at Saint Thomas University, The University of South Dakota, (Vermillion); Concordia College, (Moorhead); and Hamilton College (New York).

Apprenticeship Program

2024

Javanese Gamelan Music

with apprentice Mel Liu

Mel will be working one on one with Joko on the most advanced structure holding instrument, the kendhang. Shared through Joko’s oral tradition, Mel will memorize and apply patterns for lancaran and ladrang song forms, practicing alone for the first month, and then with the ensemble under Joko’s guidance. Mel will also study elaborating instruments, alternating study on the gendér with the bonang every other week and strengthening their technique on the elaborating instruments while mastering their understanding of the concept of iromo—different temporal density flows of beats contained within a gotro (unit of the song structure similar to the concept of a measure).