Ilham Nurwansah is a master graduate who expertise in old Sundanese palm leaf manuscripts. He found that “karinding” was mentioned in an old Sundanese manuscript from approx. 16th century. His interest to the antiques leads him to know more about Indonesian mouth harps history and artifacts. He natively plays the palm karinding, but also plays other kinds of Indonesian mouth harps.
Ilham has strong Sundanese musical sense from his study in Perceka Art Center studio in West Java. He plays many Sundanese musical instruments such as kacapi (zither), suling (flute), tarawangsa (fiddle), gamelan, celempung, and more.
He gathered many Indonesian mouth harp enthusiast into a community called Association of Indonesian Mouth Harps in 2011. From this community he collected many information about local mouth harps, and has been contributed to IJHS Newsletter and IJHS Journal. He also involved in the IJHS Global Community Promotional Video conducted by Michael Wright (watch here).
He wrote articles about karinding and other mouth harps in Sundanese, Indonesian and English and they have published in magazines and newspaper. He also known as one of karinding researcher in West Java.
Journey to find the Karinding player in Cianjur’s rural village (2013)
Playing Karinding in Stockholm, Sweden (2019)