Music and Identity: A Study on Raden Mas Celleng Community

Sanggar Seni Budaya dan Religi Raden Mas Celleng (RMC Community) Pamekasan is a community which has been established to respect the indigenous and religious musical arts. Many programs have been developed to maintain the cultural heritage as well as to deliver Islamic values within societies. One of the programs is establishing a workshop of both traditional and Islamic musical arts. The groups that have been created are Musik Daul Percussion Mas Celleng, Hadrah Albanjari Al Jamil, and Musical Collaboration. Meanwhile, the members of this community come from various ages, gender, and occupation. However, the majority of them are young people aged 12-25 years old. The present study was carried out with an ethnographic design which aims at portraying the community, especially with regard to the roles of Sanggar Seni Budaya dan Religi Raden Mas Celleng in terms of preserving the cultural heritage as well as expressing the identity of Islam among the youth. As a qualitative design, the data was mainly gathered by conducting observation, interviews and analyzing document. The finding reveals the positive views regarding to what extent Sanggar Seni dan Budaya RMC establishes the cultural heritage, explores the youth’s talents as well as presents the values of Islam. Most importantly, identity expression of youth and Islamic moderation was also noticed.