Gamelan DanAnda (GDA) is a Balinese gamelan percussion orchestra based in Darebin, Naarm. They mostly perform in the traditional Gong Kebyar style, which features shimmering cascades of metallic sound, virtuosic rhythms and breathtaking crescendos.
GDA regularly perform at Australia’s leading festivals including OzAsia Festival, Brunswick Music Festival, AsiaTOPA, the National Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival and more. Recently they have been taking this music to new spaces and audiences with collaborations with Oz hip-hop legend Joelistics, Balinese-Australian neo-soul singer/producer Komang, and electro-jazz-fusion band Firetail.
GDA have appeared live on Sunrise on Channel 7, have been interviewed and performed on The Music Show on ABC Radio National, and have appeared multiple times on Melbourne’s community radio stations to perform and be interviewed.
Modelled on a Balinese organisation style known as a Sanggar and with a community orchestra at their core, beginners and experienced players, students and professional performers come together to create a dynamic network of musical ensembles under one roof. Head down to their studio in Thornbury to give it a shot sometime.
“A new–and thoroughly beguiling–musical language”, “wooden hammers dancing in perfect unison or forging intricate, interlocking patterns on shimmering metallophones, bamboo xylophones, gongs and double-headed drums”. The Age.
“mind-boggling polyrhythmic avalanche of shifting pulses…This was a music fusion like no other…I cannot recommend this show highly enough.” BroadwayWorld review of Saudara Sound System at OzAsia Festival.