Lightbulb Ensemble

The Lightbulb Ensemble is a new music percussion ensemble that champions experimental music, instrument building, and contemporary gamelan, “whose refreshingly innovative performances challenge conventional notions of how gamelan music should sound” (SF Classical Voice). The ensemble emerged from the culture of new music in the Bay Area centering around Mills College, and the longstanding artistic exchange between Bali and the US fostered by Gamelan Sekar Jaya. The group performs on steel metallophones, wooden marimbas, and other instruments designed, tuned, and built by Brian Baumbusch, Lightbulb’s 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, The Jack Quartet, The Center for Contemporary Music, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang, among others.