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Brian Baumbusch: Bali Alloy Overture

Gamelan + String Quartet at the Bali Arts Festival

Music DMA candidate Brian Baumbusch's Bali Alloy was composed in 2012 as a collaboration between the New York based string quartet, the JACK Quartet, and gamelan Makaradhwaja of Bali.  The piece presented a cross-cultural collaboration that blended two distinct ensembles and performance practices with one unified work. This video was taken during the premiere of the piece at the 2012 Bali Arts festival in Denpasar, in front of an audience of roughly 5,000 listeners.  The piece focuses on ultilizing the instrumentation of both ensembles to feature the tonal peculiarities of the gamelan complemented by the flexible and morphing intonation of the string quartet, thereby fusing the musical practice and tuning paradigms of the two traditions.

Brian Baumbusch is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in Oakland, California.  He has spearheaded projects of both western and non-western music, and has given major performances at such venues as the Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar, The Smithsonian Instituion in Washington, The Clarice Smith Center of Maryland, Kresge Hall at MIT, Cambridge, and The Yerba Buena Center of San Francisco, among others. He has collaborated with musicians such as The JACK Quartet, I Made Subandi, Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman, Wayne Vitale, and Larry Polansky.