Pitt launches Indonesian arts partnership

The University of Pittsburgh and the Indonesian College of Performing Arts in Bandung, West Java, will launch a partnership next Friday furthering the schools’ study of Indonesian music and culture.

The University announced this week that Pitt’s Department of Music will host 20 administrators, scholars, musicians and dancers from West Java to to witness the signing of a memorandum officiating the partnership. 

Indonesian ambassador Budi Bowoleksono, Indonesian College of Performing Arts director Een Herdiani, consul general of the Republic of Indonesia in New York Ghafur Akbar Dharmaputra as well as a representative from the mayor’s office and eight faculty members will attend the event. 

“A formal agreement between Pitt and the Indonesian College will facilitate better communication between the two schools,” department of music chair Andrew Weintraub said in a release.

The visiting performers will present a free concert, “Music and Dance of West Java: The Past, Present, and Future of Sundanese Performing Arts,” in Bellefield Hall the next day.

The performers will also conduct private workshops for Pitt students taking courses in world music and gamelan, which is college-credited participation in the University Gamelan Ensemble. The ensemble includes guest performers from Indonesia in their annual major concert.

The official collaboration comes off of 30 years of shared projects between the schools, according to Weintraub. 

According to the press release, the partnership will foster artistic exchanges between students and enhance the understanding of Sundanese culture and performing arts, a core strength of Pitt’s ethnomusicology program.

“Our goal is to generate collaborative research projects, a student exchange at the graduate and undergraduate levels and, eventually, the development of a Pitt in Indonesia study abroad program,” Weintraub said.