The project is over! The concert was a success and the recording session was a fun-filled five hours of pain. I just slipped out of the lawar party (but don't worry I ate my duck brain sate before I left!) to send an email to Jon and to start packing my suitcase. I may go back if the mood strikes me, or I might just spend a little quiet time soaking in my last night in Bali.

The concert was held at an outdoor ampitheatre at the Arts Conservatory - Institut Seni Indonesia di Denpasar - last night at 8pm. The first piece was a short and sweet piece for our western musicians written by Francois Houle and called, "Bonjour Bali." The second piece was Colin and Sudi's "Arak Kok" - for sax, trumpet and gamelan. Unfortunately I didn't think that we did a fabulous job of this piece since we were all so focussed on Michael's piece still to come. (This morning we held a short recording session for Arak Kok at the sanggar). Next on the programme was a work written for the CW group (Sudi's childrens/teens gamelan) by Colin. And then Michael's piece.

Everything came together nicely for Michael's piece, named "Buk Katra" (I think - I only heard the title of the piece and never saw it written down!). Afterwards I was speaking with one of the kendang players (drummers) who said he nailed his part for the first and last time! The drumming in this piece was particularly challenging - it was written for four drummers (five drums) and typically gamelan has two drummers. Anyways, I think Michael was very satisfied with the performance. And hey - we're famous. Apparently there were like 12 video cameras for various documentaries and television stations. We're going to be on Bali TV!

So that's about it. Well, of course I have tons to say about the project/performance...but I'm sick of this Internet cafe! I hope to see some of you (the locals - especially Jon, my parents, and the neighbours) in the next few days. And to the rest of you - thanks for reading and (hopefully) I'll see you soon, too!

I will post photos of the trip after I get home (perhaps sometime next week). Stay tuned...

R.