Picnic Performances: World Music Institute: Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East + Gamelan Dharma Swara

Sunny Jain, the "indefatigable drummer and dhol player" (New Yorker), headlines an evening of South Asian music and dance. Gamelan Dharma Swara brings Balinese music and dance to Bryant Park for the first time.

Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) encompasses myriad  facets of Jain’s identity both as a first-generation South Asian–American and as a global  musician, from his own family’s immigration story to his eclectic musical upbringing. He  sources musical inspiration from the scores of Bollywood classics, Punjabi folk traditions,  jazz improvisation, and rollicking psychedelic styles. Songlines (UK) called Jain “one of  the leading figures in North America’s burgeoning Asian music scene. A global musical  alchemist and cultural agent provocateur.” His 5 piece band (drums, vocals, sax, guitar,  bass) delivered a fiery NPR Tiny Desk Concert in 2024. They toured North America  appearing at the iconic Monterey Jazz Festival, Calgary Jazz Festival, Victoria Jazz  Festival, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, National Museum of Asian Art, and the  historic Harlem Stage in NYC. In 2022, the band made a milestone tour to Pakistan  headlining Music Mela in Islamabad, the Lahore Jazz Festival and performing with master  Sufi dhol drummers Nasir Sain Wajdani and Sain Tanveer. Just months prior, the group  performed on the National Mall in Washington D.C. for the renowned Smithsonian Folklife  Festival.  

The career of Sunny Jain is a celebration of cultural diaspora: deep-rooted tradition that  ripples outward, changing – and being changed by – the cultures that it touches. He is a  composer, drummer, dhol player and thought leader. In 2022, Jain joined Planet Drum for  their first show in 15 years, playing alongside drumming legends Mickey Hart (The  Grateful Dead), Zakir Hussain, and Giovanni Hidalgo.  

Gamelan Dharma Swara which translates as “a duty of perpetuating sound" is one of the United States' preeminent Balinese music and dance ensembles, and has been captivating audiences around the world with their raucous and wondrous performances for over 33 years and counting. 

The group performs a spellbinding blend of iconic traditional pieces paired with bold contemporary compositions, spanning some 500 years, and has been called "thrilling, mesmerizing and powerful" (New York Times) and "sublime, receiving perhaps the weekend's most rapturous response" (The New Yorker). 

The group plays on instruments made by pande Made Sukerta in Bali in 2017, and combines the popular 20th century gong kebyar tuning (selisir, a five-tone scale) with the older seven-tone semar pagulingan (16th or 17th c.), making it possible to play a wide range of traditional and contemporary repertoire. Dharma Swara is proudly women-led, spearheaded by president/ugal player Victoria Lo Mellin and vice-president/dancer Miranda Danusugondo. Happily based in Queens, New York, the most diverse county in the US, the group maintains a commitment to its long-standing core values of celebrating community and promoting inclusion. 

About World Music Institute 

Founded in 1985 as a not-for-profit, World Music Institute (WMI) has served as one of the leading presenters of world music and dance within the United States. WMI is committed to presenting the best in traditional and contemporary music and dance from around the world to enrich lives through the arts, promote awareness and appreciation of the world’s rich cultural traditions, and encourage cross-cultural dialogue and exchange. WMI presents virtually and at venues throughout the city of New York and depends on public and private funding to accomplish its mission.

Bryant Park Picnic Performances presented by Bank of America is a free outdoor festival that welcomes all New Yorkers to experience the city’s vibrant arts and culture. The series provides a platform for extraordinary artists and serves as a vital outdoor venue for a wide array of New York’s cultural institutions.