I first composed the lullaby Golden Rain Baby in the 1990s in response to  request from a friend in New Zealand who wanted a song for her girls’ high school choir. I was doing some work with Professor Henry Johnson about Indonesian music at the time, so I combined the two interests, and the song was performed a few times around then. In March 2022, I was asked by Colin Maddocks of U3A in Queensland to prepare something for his course on the influence of Indonesian arts on Western artists, so I made this video explaining how Golden Rain Baby was influenced by the Javanese Gamelan piece Bubaran Hudan Mas. The song is dedicated to my friend Sarah, who had a baby at the time of the song’s composing. Also, I do like to write a lullaby!

You can see the video I prepared for Colin here!