Bali as remembered by composer Colin McPhee (1960-64)

One of the themes of the museum's Bali exhibition, which is being curated by Natasha Reichle, is "Paradise Created: Bali in the Western imagination; the West in Balinese eyes." One of Bali's early fans from North America was the Canadian born composer Colin McPhee (1900-1964). I am currently reading his sweet and fascinating memoir A House in Bali (published in 1947), which painted one of the earliest portraits of the island for readers of English. McPhee lived in Bali for nearly 10 years in the 1930s and was obsessed by the gamelan music he reports having heard practically 24 hours a day there. McPhee taught at UCLA from 1960 until his death in 1964, and his archives are held there in the Ethnomusicology department.

According to their website (http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/archive/mcphee.htm) McPhee wrote two major orchestral works inspired by Balinese music, Tabuh-Tabuhan (1936) and Symphony No. 2 (1957). McPhee also took many photographs and there is a slideshow of his lovely black and white images accompanied by music recorded by McPhee in the 1930s, among other video and audio clips that I look forward to exploring. I wonder if we can get a local symphony to present some of McPhee's compositions in conjunction with the exhibition . . . that would be amazing.