I’m an Australian ethnomusicologist and composer currently undertaking doctoral studies in ethnomusicology at UBC. My passion for music began in church music as a boy treble and organist. After high school, I studied composition, and it was at this time that I became quite taken by the music of Bali, Indonesia, going there to study instrumental techniques, and later trying my hand at composing for gamelan ensembles there. My gamelan compositions have been performed by Gamelan Salukat, Gamelan Çudamani, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Gamelan Ensemble. The experiences I had in Bali caused me to shift my direction to research in ethnomusicology. The research I have published since then is drawn from my pathway as a composer, using that as a research methodology. Since starting at UBC, I have learnt new music-analytical techniques that shape my current research in world music analysis through the lens of entrainment and cognition.

My PhD dissertation project, titled Ensemble Musicianship in Balinese Gamelan: Entrainment Form Sociality, documents group improvisation practices in North Bali, analyses cueing movement paradigms in kebyar ensembles, and discusses new rhythmic challenges in the contemporary gamelan groups Nata Swara, Gamelan Yuganada, and Gamelan Salukat. While completing my doctoral studies at UBC, I have maintained an active teaching agenda, lecturing in world music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Western Washington University, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Balinese Gamelan, contemporary composition in Bali, music analysis, rhythm analysis, orality, entrainment, music cognition

My major gamelan composition “Waringin”:

Conference presentation “Konnakol Duet in a 75-pulse Tāla: A Comparison of Analytical Representations”:

Conference presentation “Rhythmic Complexity in Intercultural Music Projects in Bali”:

Composition for Gamelan Selonding (partially funded through a UBC SSHRC Grant) 

Composition for Sanggar Nata Swara (partially funded through a UBC SSHRC Grant)