Audiences were able to listen to an orchestra Saturday night that featured bamboo instruments and Balinese music at a recital played by the Gamelan Sekar Jaya. The recital was part of the World Music events of the 2009 Festival of the Arts that began Thursday, March 19 and ended Saturday night.

The Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a group of musicians from Berkeley who have been playing Bali music for 30 years.

“It began as a six-week workshop and never stopped,” music director Wayne Vitale said.

The group played percussion instruments of bronze, wood, iron and bamboo up to 10 feet long. The performers mainly played one or two patterns that created different sounds at different points of the musical numbers.

“The syncopation was out of this world,” Joseph Hansen, a communications graduate, said. “You don’t see things like this in the U.S.”

Vitale said this intertwining form was what grabbed his interest 30 years ago when he began playing.

For Jessica Russell, communications graduate, what she most enjoyed was how the musicians worked together.

“I like how they build up as a group and not as an individual. They have a completely collective sound,” she said.

Besides music, the recital also featured traditional Balinese dancing, with soft steps, expressive, rhythmical head movements and arms shifting gracefully to the music.

Michelle Wong, senior family and consumer science major said it was interesting to see the music and dance together.

“I liked seeing the hand gestures and movements,” Wong said.

The director introduced guest dance director Emiko Saraswati Susilo and musical director I Dewa Putu Berata, who taught the group some of the numbers, such as “Kempur Dang,” which Berata heard in the temples as a child. Vitale said they are only two of the many guests who fly from Bali to teach them Balinese music.

“What keeps us going is the inspiration, leadership and music we keep getting from Bali,” the group director said. “Without it, we wouldn’t be here.

Kyrie Eberhart can be reached at [email protected]