Gamelan Pacifica


Gamelan Pacifica is an American gamelan Cornish College of the Arts ensemble in residence, formed as a community group in 1980. The instruments where built by composer-builder Daniel Schmidt using aluminum. It is a Javanese style iron and bronze double gamelan ; Cirebonese slendro bronze.
Their repertoire is traditional, with a focus on Central Javanese style; also modern and contemporary compositions from within the international gamelan repertoire. For example, their album Nourishment contains an arrangement of Philip Glass's Glassworks "Opening" movement, Lou Harrison's Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Javanese Gamelan, pieces by three other composers, as well as traditional pieces.
They have performed a just 11-limit tuning pelog scale using harmonics 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 15, used in the first movement of Lou Harrison's Scenes from Cavafy while the second movement uses a slendro based on the 7-limit intervals 8/7 and 7/6.