Evan Laforge

Education

Experience

California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, USA

1998 - 2002

Studied gong kebyar and gender wayang with Bapak Nyoman Wenten. Performed in the CalArts kebyar ensemble as well as assisting teaching and performance at the UCLA and Pomona college ensembles. Munduk, Buleleng, Indonesia 2002 - 2004 Studied gender wayang and gong kebyar with Bapak Made Terip in Munduk, Buleleng. Performed at many weddings, funerals, masangih (tooth filing ceremonies), odalan (temple anniversaries), and competitions, including several province-wide events. Learned fluent spoken Indonesian and conversational Balinese and Javanese. Sekar Jaya, California, USA 2004 - 2006 Performed with Gamelan Sekar Jaya, in gong kebyar, angklung, gender wayang, and gong suling ensembles. Participated in numerous performances, including "A (Balinese) Tempest" wayang with Larry Reed's Shadowlight ensemble. Taiwan National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan 2009 Informally taught angklung as an assistant to Professor Lee Ching-huei (李婧慧). Gadung Kasturi, California, USA 2007 - 2012 Performed with the newly-formed Gadung Kasturi music ensemble. I assist with transcription and teaching, in addition to performing on gangsa, gender rambat, trompong, and kendang. Google, California, USA 2007 - 2012 My full-time job is a software engineer at Google. I work in the maps group. Skills My native language is English, but I'm fluent in Indonesian and Mandarin, and speak conversational Balinese. My primary instruments are gangsa, gender wayang, reyong, with kendang as a current focus, but I have performed on all the instruments in the kebyar and pelegongan ensembles, including suling and gerantang. I have studied Chinese bamboo flute (笛子) and pipa (琵琶). At one time in the distant past I performed on viola and piano. I've composed for European ensembles such as string quartets, woodwind quintets, brass ensembles, and the like. I also have experience in electronic music, writing both music and software. I've worked as a transcriptionist, transcribing recordings into staff notation, and in the course of teaching Balinese music have transcribed a lot of Balinese music into custom forms of notation. I'm a full-time software engineer at Google, programming in Python, Haskell, Java, and C++. I write software for map creation and navigation. Additional Interests Natural languages and writing systems, programming languages, music notation, sound synthesis, computer graphics, recumbent bicycles. References available on request.