Women in Percussion. Music for Change.
I decided I needed a break from my studies around the halfway point of the year. I needed a little taste of home and Western culture since I spent the winter holidays on a predominately Hindu island. My parents decided they needed a vacation too and decided to meet me in Melbourne, Australia for a [...]
One day, Balot invited me to the gamelan factory that made his own personal set of gamelan. I had to meet him in a small village in Gianyar, where all of the gongsmiths lived. As I told you in a later post, each village in Bali has their own craft. I lived in the village [...]
One day, Balot invited me to go to a children's gamelan rehearsal lead by his mentor, I Made Subandi. The rehearsal took place at Made's house, where he had his own personal collection of gamelan instruments. I arrived around the same time as the children did for their rehearsal and watched while everyone shuffled in. [...]
I met many new friends through the Narwastu Gamelan Ensemble. Many were Westerners who were studying gamelan for a year at the local university, the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. One night, they invited me out to an album release of record that was a compilation of new music by Balinese composers on traditional gamelan [...]
I hit the ground running at my first rehearsal with the Narwastu gamelan ensemble. I've seen gamelan performances before on Youtube and I even attended a gamelan concert during my first couple of days in Bali, but this was the first time I was touching distance to the instruments. It was the first time to [...]
One weekend, I thought it would be fun to go with my friend Ji Heon to a concert. It was winter, so it was difficult to explore Seoul without my Texas body freezing. I learned the hard way that snow does, in fact, melt when it sticks to your coat, face, or hair; who knew [...]
November 2016 During my month in Seoul, South Korea, I was quite lucky to be hosted by my friend, JiHeon Ahn, and his family. I experienced local Korean lifestyle, from house slippers to highly sophisticated toilet technology! Even though I was only in Korea a few weeks, I was able to take music classes, attend [...]
November 2016 So far with my blogs, you have seen Leontine in action teaching two separate classes at the Meg Foundation and the Kigali Music School. In this blog post, I will got more into depth about her classes and share a little bit about her life, her aspirations, and her role as a woman [...]
October 2016 Leontine works as a music teacher at the Meg Foundation, a UK-funded NGO. The Meg Foundation is a primary school and women's co-operative located in Kinamba, one of the poorest communities of Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. It was founded by, and today is still run by, Meg Fletcher. Each child admitted to the [...]
October 2016 As I mentioned in my previous post, Musicians without Borders (MWB) works with local musicians to "teach singing, songwriting, and music therapy, making use of Rwandan traditional culture to address the trauma of the genocide and conflict" (from the MWB website). Overall, the goal is to create sustainable music programs that can be [...]
