I Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana is highly regarded internationally as an excellent performer and teacher of traditional Balinese instrumental music. He graduated from the Conservatory of Indonesian Musical Arts in 1999, though is primarily trained in the local performing arts of his village of Pengosekan, near Ubud, Bali. He is a founding member of Gamelan Çudamani, one of the premiere Balinese gamelan troupes, and has toured multiple times with Çudamani to the U.S., Canada, Japan, Italy, and Greece. Their most recent tour of the production “Odalan Bali” won acclaim from critics across the U.S. and Canada. Çudamani is dedicated to the preservation and transmission of traditional Balinese gamelan repertoire, as well as to the creation of new compositions through the support of members’ artistic and cultural innovation. Dewa has been active in both of these aspects of the organization as one of the core teachers of Çudamani’s educational programs for children in Pengosekan. He has been a key supporter of the development of the Çudamani Girls’ Gamelan, one of the only ensembles of its kind to offer the opportunity to learn gamelan music for young girls in Bali. He also founded a young boys’ gamelan ensemble at Çudamani in 2006.
Dewa has taught gamelan music to foreign students from the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the U.K. privately since 2000. He was an Artist-in-Residence with Gamelan Sekar Jaya in California in 2007, and the Artist-in-Residence with the University of California, Santa Barbara Gamelan Angklung Ensemble, in 2008. He has been involved with the Çudamani Gamelan Music and Dance Summer Institute geared for non-Indonesian artists, especially in 2007, 2008, and 2018. Dewa is sought after for his clear and systematic teaching methods, and has been invited to teach gong kebyar, angklung, and gamelan semarandana repertoire to men’s, women’s, and children’s gamelans across southern Bali in preparation for their performances for temple ceremonies and festival competitions since 1998.
