The CalArts Pool Fisheye Snapshot

Jody Diamond (Critical Studies/Music 73)

Jody Diamond (Critical Studies/Music 73) writes “I was playing in five different gamelan groups when the pandemic hit—Bali, Central Java, West Java, American composers, and teaching with my Harrison/Colvig gamelan at SUNY New Paltz—when all rehearsals were canceled. Glad to have other work that is meaningful, I spent the year working on my journal BALUNGAN, since 1984 dedicated to all forms of gamelan and related arts. This issue documents the world of gamelan in the era of COVID. In 100 pages, over 70 contributors from 15 countries describe how they met the challenges of continuing community music-making and other arts when the community couldn’t be together. • For Frog Peak Music (a composers’ collective), I created a book called ALONES—a gift of 600 pages of scores for one musician and one instrument, including several by David Rosenboom—for those home alone with their instrument. It’s online, under “Scores.” • For Anthony Braxton’s 75th birthday, I am designing a new edition of the three volumes of his Tri-Axium Writings, a project of Frog Peak Music and the Tri-Centric Foundation. His birthday should have been celebrated last year, but we have all had to move with the times, still believing that there is more time to come”.