Harja Susilo: 26 years of flexibility and tolerance (interview)

Harja Susilo taught in the first university gamelan program at UCLA in 1958, and has been particularly well known for his skill as a dancer and kendang player (drummer). He is presently teaching in the Ethnomusicology Department at the University of Hawaii. After twenty-five years of teaching gamelan to American students, his eloquence and patience are well developed. In the following interview, conducted in Honolulu on June 18, 1983, Susilo talks about the Hawaii gamelan club and its repertoire, and his views on notation, teaching beginners, the learning of Javanese culture through gamelan, and new directions in musical composition.