Swara Naga, UNE Gamelan

Introducing
Swara Naga
(Voice of the Dragon)

Swara Naga is a dynamic 10-piece Australian performance group playing traditional, modern and ‘fusion’ gamelan music of Indonesia.

Swara Naga aims to stimulate interest and activity in Indonesian gamelan music through performance of this ancient musical tradition. The group also serves a broader role of widening the musical perspectives of students and the community, as well as fostering good relations with the Indonesian community in Australia.

Our specialty is the haunting degung and madenda –scale percussion and flute music of West Java. We are the only such active gamelan group in Australia. Swara Naga has toured and performed extensively with great success, including overseas trips to Singapore, Indonesia and New Zealand, and has recorded two CDs – Metal Magic (1999), and Better than Bagus (2003).

The group focuses on original compositions and arrangements of Sundanese music which fuse Western and Indonesian styles and instruments. We use the sax and fiddle in several pieces combined with the traditional percussion/flute gamelan ensemble, and combine Western rock, Celtic, folk, and classical styles with traditional musical elements in some pieces.

Dr David Goldsworthy is the current director of this group which is based at the University of New England, Armidale, N.S.W., Australia.

UNE Music took delivery of an iron pelog and slendro- tuned Central Javanese gamelan in 1978. It was made in a village near Surakarta in 1977.

In 1986, a bronze slendro-tuned gamelan was purchased from Surakarta to replace the original iron set.

Swara Naga’s beautiful bronze degung-tuned set of instruments from West Java was added to the collection in 1990.