Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG)

Read Profile

Toronto-based Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan is a collective of professional musicians.

Its core repertoire calls for eight players, though it also collaborates with guest musicians, singers and dancers. Its core mission: to develop a hybrid repertoire and performance practice on a high artistic level on its own gamelan degung, a bronze, wood and bamboo orchestra indigenous to West Java, Indonesia. Fostering intercultural musical connections through performances with Indonesian artists is also a guiding value.

Founded in 1983, ECCG was the first Canadian group dedicated to performing on gamelan. ECCG regularly commissions new works - over 200 to date - launching them in its annual Toronto concert season. Composers ECCG has premiered works by John Cage, Lou Harrison, Linda Bouchard, Allison Cameron, Walter Boudreau, Linda C. Smith and Ana Sokolović.

ECCG’s repertoire includes arrangements of Indonesian songs, as well as boundary-busting experimental works which embrace forms such as music theatre, opera, choral music, Baroque orchestra, rap and hip hop turntablism. It has toured widely in North America, Europe, Japan and Indonesia and is featured on over 15 commercial albums.