“Kala Rame” by I Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena was commissioned as a part of a project entitled “Kebyar Tunggal” where I asked Balinese composers to write solo percussion works. This was supported largely by a Presser Graduate Music Award, which funded a trip to Bali in 2024 to work directly with composers on these pieces. The intention in the project was to combine my personal interests in both Western solo percussion and Balinese gamelan without resorting to problematic transcriptions or imitations.

Putu Tangkas’s work incorporates two important Balinese cultural ideas, in both the title and performance prompts. In Balinese culture, the concept of rame plays a significant role in shaping community life and collective expression. Rame can be translated as "crowded," "lively," or "bustling," but it carries deeper cultural meanings that resonate through the island's social, religious, and artistic practices.

The other concept, “kala”, is integral to Balinese cosmology in the form of the bhuta kala, the spirits or demons that embody the forces of chaos. Bhuta kala are often depicted as mischievous, sometimes frightening figures that represent forces of destruction and the natural order’s cyclical nature. While these spirits are associated with negative energy, they are not seen as purely malevolent in Balinese thought. Instead, they are part of the broader spiritual balance that is necessary to maintain harmony within the cosmos.

As his ethnographic work centers on decolonizing Balinese research, it was agreed upon at the beginning of this collaboration that his composition would eschew any sort of Western notation, despite his fluency in the practice. We decided that the commission would include both a graphic and text score. The final product is open in instrumentation, but prompts the performer to use four pieces of gamelan instruments along with four to eight guitar pedals and four to eight different panggul, or striking implements.