Out of all the cities I visited on my Europe trip, Paris was the only one that I had visited before (other than London, but I barely spent any time there at all). I was heading there specifically because of a gamelan that I’d found when searching up groups to go and visit – gamelan Puspawarna. What I was really looking forward to was their new composition, Polyphème. They’d just had a residency with Wassim Halal, a French darbuka musician, but they’d also engaged Dewa Ketut Alit, a famous Balinese gamelan composer, to work with them on the compositions. Naturally, I was very excited as this was right up my alley: this was an intercultural collaboration in however many ways you want to define it: collaborations between French musicians and Balinese instruments; Balinese and Lebanese instruments; Balinese composer and French musicians; French composers and Balinese and Lebanese instruments: everything was so interconnected, and I was curious to see how it went!

One of the musicians in the group told me the performance venue was “not far from Paris”, in a place called Montreuil. I looked at a map and thought, “that’s Paris”, though I recognise there are lots of political connotations about whether a place is actually “in” Paris or not. It was the last stop on the train, make of that what you will. I made my way to the performance venue, and waited outside for a bit before we entered. The tickets said it started at 7pm, we were finally let in at 7.20pm, which I was a bit surprised by but I figured maybe the ticket was earlier so people could arrive late. It turns out the show actually started around 8.30, but there was a canteen open beforehand serving drinks and a full 3 course menu for dinner. It was actually quite a fun vibe, because everyone got food and sat together and talked before going and watching the show. This made me reflect on food and music, which I have been thinking about quite a bit over the course of my PhD! Of course, I can’t speak a lick of French (other than to ask people if they could speak English, which I learned after this event), which limited how willing I was to sit down at a table with people I didn’t know. I find networking hard at the best of times, though in my second languages I feel OK doing it. In a language I don’t know – that’s way more intimidating!

The performance started with the sounds of gamelan from behind us, actually. There was a balcony seating level, and they had brought out some gamelan instruments there to play one piece, which impressed me. I really love when music plays around with space, which is often easier to do outside a traditional concert hall. It was a brilliant way to open the concert: gamelan is traditionally played outside, and I felt that playing with space inside the venue actually appealed to this tradition by surrounding the audience with sound rather than engaging with the more stuffy Western Classical performance tradition. The rest of the concert was an incredible mix of darbuka, electronics, and incredible Balinese gamelan playing; certainly the best I have seen outside of Bali. These were difficult pieces, demanding a high degree of rhythmic virtuosity. You could see in the musicians’ faces just how hard they needed to concentrate: in some pieces, eyes were closed to help drown out unnecessary senses and focus just on the music. I very rarely buy CDs, I don’t even have a dedicated player, but I was happy to support the group: firstly because I care about collaborations like this; and secondly because the music also just really appealed to me.

If you’re interested in hearing the pieces, this is the Spotify link to the album (and I’m sure you can easily find it on other platforms also). As with all albums you enjoy, if you like it, it means a lot to the artists to buy it with some other method than streaming (this is because the streaming royalties are pitifully small).

P.S. In the interests of transparency, this isn’t a sponsored post at all, but it felt wrong to talk about an album and not share it in any way. I’m not associated with this group in any way and do not benefit financially from any purchases of any of their music.