Lightbulb Ensemble (canceled)
The Lightbulb Ensemble is a new-music percussion ensemble that champions experimental music, instrument building and contemporary gamelan. Its "refreshingly innovative performances challenge conventional notions of how gamelan music should sound" (San Francisco Classical Voice), and it is "as cutting edge as cutting edge gets, exuberantly complex, maddeningly beautiful and as intoxicating as a drug" (Washington Post). The ensemble emerged from the culture of new music at Mills College and the longstanding artistic exchange between Bali and the U.S. fostered by Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Free.
The Lightbulb Ensemble performs on steel metallophones, wooden marimbas and other instruments designed, tuned and built by Brian Baumbusch, founder and director. Performing only new repertoire, the group presents in-house compositions and collaborates with other artists of the new music community, including the Paul Dresher Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang, and the Center for Contemporary Music, among others.