The Indonesian band Krakatau will perform on campus June 6.

Indonesian ‘world jazz’ band to give campus performance

Krakatau, a creative Indonesian “world jazz” band making its first North American tour, will stop at BGSU for a 7 p.m. concert June 6 in 101 Olscamp Hall. Admission is free.

The University will be the second stop on the band’s tour, which also includes concerts in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto, Colorado Springs, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City, at the Lincoln Center Outdoor Festival.

Krakatau wanted to come to Bowling Green because “BGSU is one of the only universities in North America with two Indonesian music specialists on its faculty,” said one of those specialists, Jeremy Wallach, popular culture. The other is David Harnish, musical arts and director of the Kusuma Sari Gamelan.

Krakatau is the product of a collaboration of Indonesian pop idols, veteran jazzmen and virtuosos of traditional West Javanese music. Over the last decade, the group, based in Bandung, West Java, has forged a unique sound combining Indonesian traditional music, electric jazz, hard rock and funk.

Krakatau has toured extensively, playing in major cities and at international jazz festivals throughout Europe, China and Southeast Asia. Combining dance, spectacle and displays of individual and ensemble musicianship, the band’s performances have been praised by music critics and fans. Its music celebrates our common humanity, demonstrating how it can transcend differences of religion, culture and nationality.

The Bowling Green concert is sponsored by a number of campus organizations, including the BGSU gamelan program, the College of Musical Arts, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, the Asian Studies program, Asian Communities United and the Department of Popular Culture.

For more information about the band, see www.krakatau.net, and for more about its appearance at BGSU, contact Wallach at 2-8204 or jeremyw@bgnet.bgsu.edu.