{"id":19126,"date":"2026-02-19T21:26:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T21:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsmidwest.org\/?p=19126"},"modified":"2026-02-25T20:23:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:23:36","slug":"putu-tangkas-adi-hiranmayena-midwest-culture-bearer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsmidwest.org\/stories\/putu-tangkas-adi-hiranmayena-midwest-culture-bearer\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena, Infusing Experimentation into Balinese Music and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Award-winning sound artist, scholar, educator, and creative ethnographer Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena summarizes his many hats with one whimsical title: Minister of Noise and Cosmology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt started as a little bit of a joke, because if there\u2019s a conversation in which I don\u2019t drop the word \u2018noise\u2019 or \u2018cosmology,\u2019 you know something\u2019s wrong,\u201d laughs Hiranmayena, who is a 2025 Midwest Culture Bearer awardee<\/a>. \u201cBut it encapsulates the kind of things I\u2019m interested in: how people believe and what people believe, and how the presence of noise exists in belief.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While \u201cnoise\u201d can be a broad term, Hiranmayena uses an Indonesian word to pinpoint his definition: ram\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n In college Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena began exploring the connecting threads between his many passions. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, actually, my own identity within an arts family has a lot of parallels with the things I\u2019m interested in: the role of music in community, noise, the environment, social justice, epistemic justice,\u201d he says. \n\n <\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n \n \n <\/figure>\n\n
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\u201c[For many Indonesians] It\u2019s a kind of noise that is desired\u2026a centrality of human life,\u201d he says. Think of a tailgate, a birthday party, or even a protest: \u201cLoud and noisy, but full of love, life, and people in collective motion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hiranmayena\u2019s multi-layered career blends tradition and experimentation. He grew up performing Balinese music with his family, who emigrated to the U.S. when he was an infant. At the center of this tradition was gamelan, an ensemble of drums, gongs, flutes, and xylophones that is played by, for, and in community.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Indonesia, gamelan are passed down from generation to generation. They are specific to each village, using locally sourced materials, designs, and tunings that are not usually standardized (attempts at standardizing is a huge critique of Hiranmayena). They feature in many ceremonies, often with multiple musical events happening simultaneously.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTraditional Balinese music should not be conceptualized as mere entertainment (a contentious topic even amongst Indonesians); it\u2019s an activity you do with people in your community,\u201d says Hiranmayena. \u201cWhen you have all these different musical practices in the same place, it becomes ram\u00e9.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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“Heavy metal tends to be really about the layperson, about getting with your buddies and negotiating creativity on your own without an authority . . . It took me a really long time to realize this, but gamelan traditionally works that way too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n PUTU TANGKAS ADI HIRANMAYENA<\/cite>\n <\/blockquote>\n\n