I Gede Oka Artha Negara is the founder and director of Gamelan Artha Negara in Santa Cruz, California. He is an accomplished composer, musician, choreographer and dancer from Bali, Indonesia. From 1992-2011 he was the Associate Artistic Director and a leading performer in Gamelan Suar Agung, acknowledged as one of the finest and most influential Jegog ensembles in Bali.
Gede Oka has taught and performed internationally. Some of his career highlights have been leading Suar Agung to prominent festivals throughout Indonesia and abroad such as the International Gamelan Festival in Amsterdam, Holland (2007). He performed with Suar Agung for the opening of the 2008 World Cup in France, has toured in Japan many times, and danced as an independent artist in Singapore and Thailand. He has invited to the United States twice, first in 2010 as a guest musical director with Gamelan Sekar Jaya in Oakland, CA and then in 2011 to perform with Song of Dharma for the opening of the Bali Exhibit at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.
He began studying Balinese performing arts as a child in West Bali in the village of Sangkar Agung, Negara, under the tutelage of his father I Ketut Suwentra, a renowned artist and the founder and director of Suar Agung. He continued his studies at ISI (Bali's National Academy of the Arts), where he specialized in composition and bamboo music. Gede considers it his mission to spread appreciation and knowledge of Gamelan music, dance, and culture around the globe.
