The following text is taken from Front Magazine, vol. V, no. 4, p. 9, March/April 1994:

The Western Front is pleased to ring in Spring with two concerts of new and traditional gamelan music featuring the talents of the members of Western Canada’s only performing gamelan ensemble, Kyai Madu Sari (The Venerable Essence of Honey) in collaboration with Vancouver composers and musicians.

The ensemble presents new work by Vancouver composers; Andreas Kahre, Michael O’Neill, Mark Parlett, Randy Raine-Reusch and Sam Salmon as well as Joko Purwanto, a master musician from Solo, Java who is currently leading the ensemble and teaching at Simon Fraser University. The two concerts are an opportunity for these local composers who have been influenced to various degrees by the gong-chime percussion orchestra, known as gamelan, to create and apply new instrumental combinations and compositional techniques to the gamelan. Through the inspiration of the late composer/professor, Martin Bartlett, gamelan has become a fixture in the local music scene and continues to grow in an ongoing artistic exchange between artists from Indonesia and Vancouver.