Gamelan Council non-partisan consulting firm created under the aegis of Global Student Response (GSR) and focused on supporting international development efforts which has since been disbanded. As GCG’s efforts became more geographically focused on the Asia-Pacific region and thematically focused on microfinance and public health developmental issues, the Gamelan Council formed to focus specifically on these areas. The name of the organization is a combination of the Indonesian word referring to a music ensemble, ‘Gamelan,’ and an English word referring to a Native American, community-fostering ritual, ‘Council’ (the same term used to refer commonly to a group of individuals providing advice and
Gamelan outside Indonesia was the Boston Village Gamelan, now known as Gamelan Laras Tentrem in Massachusetts, and the first Balinese community group was Gamelan Sekar Jaya in California. Other community Balinese gamelan ensembles are Gamelan Mitra Kusuma in Washington, D.C., Gamelan Dharma Swara at the Indonesian Consulate in New York City, Space City Gamelan in Houston, the Lehigh Valley Gamelan in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Gamelan Tunas Mekar in Denver. Gamelan Sari Raras is an active Javanese ensemble in Berkeley, California; the name was given to the group by Widiyanto (aka Midiyanto), and the instruments, brought to the U.S. from Java in 1971, are