I Putu Arya Deva Suryanegara (b.1996) is a musician and composer from Kerobokan, Bali, Indonesia. His most recent work integrates computer music systems and experimentation within frameworks rooted in Balinese gamelan. This is informed by his expertise in several longstanding Balinese gamelan music and his interest in acoustics, music programming, electroacoustics, psychoacoustic, and audiovisual.
Arya graduated from the Indonesian Institute of the Arts Denpasar in 2018 and was invited to teach as a guest lecturer in the Digital Music class in 2022. His final composition for the degree of Performing Arts (S1), “O”, was a massive study involving nearly forty musicians, mixed gamelan tunings, sound spatialization, and amplified sympathetic resonance.
In 2024, he earned his master’s in Music Composition and Sound Creation at the Université de Montréal (UdeM), Canada, under the direction of Pierre Michaud. During his study, Arya presented and performed his compositions and research internationally, such as at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts Denpasar (ID), The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CA), the University of British Columbia (CA), Metropolitan State University of Denver (USA), Grinnell College (USA), and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (USA), University of California, Berkeley (USA), Artificial Intelligence Music Creativity conference (JPN), Université du Québec à Montréal (CA), Concordia University (CA), a Carte Blanche concert “Electro Gamelan” for performing his works at UdeM (CA), and more.
He is a lecturer at Université de Montréal, guest artistic director for Gamelan Giri Kedaton, co-founder of the art collective Naradha Gita (Nagi), and board member and assistant director at Insitu Recordings.
In addition to his work as a composer and musician, he has written articles about music for Insitu Recordings Magazine, Kalangwan, La revue musical OICRM, Balungan, and Artificial Intelligent Music Creativity, and contributed at Music and Transcendence in a Posthuman Age (upcoming book chapter).
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During his studies in SMKN 3 Sukawati (Kokar) and ISI Denpasar, he has studied gamelan composition with I Made Subandi, I Ketut Cater, I Gusti Ngurah Padang, I Ketut Garwa, Tri Haryanto, Kadek Indra Wijaya, I Nyoman Windha, I Made Arnawa, Balot, Zachary Hejny, and more.
In Canada, he studied composition, musicology, electroacoustics, music programming, acoustics, psychoacoustics, and sound recordings with Pierre Michaud, Jonathan Goldman, Georges Forget, Martin Bédard, Caroline Traube, Martin Marier, Dominic Thibault, Olivier Bélanger, and others.
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Arya is also interested in classical (11th to the beginning of 20th century) Balinese gamelan practices. In an effort to keep the practice of gamelan Gambang alive in his village of Kerobokan, he went to study with the aging local expert. He then initiated his own new group to this repertoire and technique. Arya also founded a gamelan Selonding group as a means to contribute to his community, where the practice was still nonexistent. His interest in Selonding extends to research. For his article Selonding: Nafas dan Kehidupan Baru, Arya went to the village where this tradition originated to examine how Selonding expanded to the rest of the island. With his compositions Lapas Anarki, Ujan Memedi, Mitir, “O”, and Chocolate Meteor, Arya recontextualizes ancient musical practices with contemporary creation.
Arya’s acquaintance with earlier recordings started with the project initiated at Institut Seni Indonesia Denpasar to reconstruct Bali 1928 gamelan pieces gathered by Edward Herbst. In order to recontextualize this music, Arya familiarized himself with the recording of Genggongan, learned the piece from audio and taught it to the ensemble. He visited the composer’s house, I Wayan Lotring, to investigate the current state of this piece within the originating community. He also participated as a musician and audiovisual engineer for the entirety of his group’s reconstruction project. In his article Trance and Dance in Bali (1951). On the Musical Selection of Mead and Bateson’s Film, his knowledge of these early recordings strengthened. Arya investigates Colin McPhee’s role as a music arranger in Margaret Mead’s and Gregory Bateson’s ethnographic film Trance and Dance in Bali.
Lastest Scholarships and Grants
- Bourse d’études supérieures de la Faculté de musique, UdeM (2021)
- Bourse de maîtrise OICRM (2021-2022)
Arya Deva Suryanegara 