Naga is a new album of contemporary compositions for the New Zealand School of Music gamelan orchestras, Gamelan Padhang Moncar and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya.
For three weeks of July 2013, the New Zealand School of Music’s two gamelan ensembles (the Javanese Padhang Moncar and the Balinese Taniwha Jaya) toured six Indonesian cities. Their fourteen performances included a concert at the Yogyakarta International Gamelan Festival, as well as joint concerts in schools and universities such as Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, and Brawijaya University in Malang.
This was the fourth tour for Padhang Moncar and the second for Taniwha Jaya (their first to perfrom in Bali in a joint concert with three other Balinese groups). The core repertoire comprised twelve new compositions created especially for this tour by composers from within both groups. These works are now recorded and released by Rattle on the album Naga.