Early Encounters in Bimusicality

Abstract

The chapter presents an overview of the introduction of gamelan to North America and examines how the ensembles assumed a key role within the philosophy and practice of American collegiate world music education. Musical and cultural exhibitions at world’s fairs, the dispersion of early recordings of gamelan music, transnational performance tours, and the work of Western composers and pedagogues led to the importation of instruments and founding of early academic gamelans. The world music ensemble programs modeled after those founded at UCLA by Mantle Hood embodied a new and important paradigm in ethnomusicology termed bimusicality, as well as sparking the collegiate world music ensemble movement. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the current gamelan scene in the United States that reconnects the early development of academic gamelan ensembles to contemporary artistic and educational practices.