About Us
Gamelaning is a group of freelance, professional musicians and educators who have many years of experience working in their fields.
Set up and founded by Aris Daryono in 2007, Gamelaning originally offered gamelan and Indonesian cultural and educational workshops and performances.
We are now offering a wider provision by bringing together professional musicians and experienced workshop facilitators to deliver workshops and projects in a wider range of art forms, including Gamelan, Samba, African Drumming, shadow puppetry, and storytelling.
With as little as £235 you will experience educational, memorable and fun of world music workshops.
We are able to provide full or half-day workshops, performances, tailor-made artist residency projects, collaborative projects and teacher training sessions (INSET), as well as bespoke projects that will suit your setting. We also offer professional gamelan performances for all occasions performed by a group of professional musicians.
Since 2012 we have been working with the Indonesian Embassy in London to run Gamelan and Puppetry Projects for schools in the UK. With their support, we are able to offer schools £350 toward the cost of a 5 full-day project. Find out more here.
Our Facilitators
Aris Daryono
Aris is a professional gamelan musician, educator, and composer who has been living and working in the UK for over 20 years. As a gamelan expert and musician, Aris is a member of the Southbank Gamelan Players based at the Southbank Centre in London and has been a guest musician for many gamelan groups across the UK. He was born and grew up in Solo, Indonesia and has been teaching and running gamelan workshops since he moved to the UK in 1999.
Aris is also a composer and has a Masters in composition from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a PhD in composition, focusing on gamelan, western instruments, and electronics from York University. He continues to be active in composing and performing and he is the founder and director of the Gamelan Composers’ Forum, an international association for composers of new music for gamelan.
Pablo Paracchino
An enthusiastic educator, Pablo studied Music Therapy at Center for Music Education (Milan) in 1997 and further gained a certificate in Music Workshop Skills at Goldsmith College (London) graduating in 2002.
Since then, Pablo has worked as a peripatetic teacher in primary and secondary schools in all four corners of London (...and suburb!) teaching Drum Kit, Percussion, Music Production and leading instruments making workshops, instrumental ensembles and Samba bands.
Currently, he is the Samba Programme Co-ordinator for Southwark Music Service, providing samba classes and workshops across the borough. He also teaches Samba for Ark Schools and is a drum and African/Latin percussion tutor for Lewisham Music Service.
Over the years Pablo has led and devised workshops for a variety of companies including: The Roundhouse Studios, Peckham Splash, London Bubble Theatre, Emergency Exit Arts, Nutkhut, Theatre Rites, Contemporary British Arts, MouseTrap Theatre, Puppets With Guts, Changing faces Collective, The Trojan’s Scheme, Greenwich Music Service and Lambeth Music Service.
Pablo is also a producer and a session musician playing drums and percussion currently working and performing with Alex and The Wonderland, BirdEatsBaby, The Zarrs.
Paul Brett
Paul is a professional musician specialising in drum kit and West African percussion. He plays in bands and teaches at various schools in and around London. Paul has completed the Music Workshop Leader programme at Community Music (London), Btec in Popular Music (Lewisham College) and has a degree in Commercial Music from the University of Westminster.
An experienced facilitator, Paul has been studying West African drumming for over 20 years with some of the finest teachers, currently with Senegalese griot Mohamed Gueye.