Ludruk is one of the performing arts that grow in East Java. Not only popular in the capital city of Surabaya, but also in other cities. There are at least 16 names of Ludruk groups, whose recordings are stored in the Museum Musik Indonesia (MMI). Unfortunately, not all recordings explain which city the Ludruk group originally came from.
Most recordings in the museum are from Ludruk Vijaya Kusuma with 7 stories and 21 cassettes. There is also a similar name, that is Ludruk Wijaya Kusuma with 6 cassettes. The other Ludruk groups whose works are documented on a cassette are Ludruk Arum Dalu, Baru Budi (Surabaya), Bintang Timur, Djawa Timur, Gelora Budaya, Kartika Jaya (Jombang), Mandala, Nusantara, Orkanda (Malang), Persada, Putra Bhakti, RRI Surabaya, Sari Wargi and Ludruk Teruna Jaya. In total, there are about 76 Ludruk cassettes that our museum has successfully stored. We are pretty sure that the number of published Ludruk recordings is more than that number. Recordings in the form of vinyl recordings are not included.
There is also another group that seems to play the Ludruk standard, but does not explicitly call it a Ludruk group. Its name is the Sawunggaling Karawitan Group in Surabaya, under the leadership of Nelwan. Many famous names appeared with this group, including Kartolo, Basman, etc. There are 20 cassettes for this musical group in Museum Musik Indonesia. The data above is still temporary. Due to limited time and resources, we have not had time to review the entire collection.
