Bio


Brian Baumbusch is a composer, instrument designer, and musicologist whose "harmonically vivid... intense... simmering" (NY Times) compositions push the boundaries of new music. His works engage the use of new technologies while also drawing on deep cross-cultural histories. His 2015 composition, Hydrogen(2)Oxygen written for the JACK Quartet and Lightbulb Ensemble, centered on a set of new percussion instruments that Baumbusch designed and built between 2011 and 2014, is described by the Washington Post as being "exuberantly complex, maddeningly beautiful, and as intoxicating as a drug." He has headlined performances at the Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar, The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, The Clarice Smith Center of Maryland, and The Yerba Buena Center of San Francisco, among others. He has collaborated with musicians such as I Made Subandi, The JACK Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, The Cal State Fullerton Wind Symphony, and the Balinese ensemble Nata Swara, among others. 

Background: 

Baumbusch has conducted extensive research regarding the music from central Argentina, as well as the music of Bali. In 2009, he founded the Cacho Ensemble in Madrid alongside composer José Luis Merlín, dedicated to performing Argentinean folk music from the regions of Santiago del Estero, Mendoza, San Luis, and San Juan. The group performed in Europe and the United States between 2006 and 2011. In 2010, Baumbusch completed the first full English translation of Atahualpa Yupanqui's epic poem El payador perseguido. The translation was presented alongside a performance by Baumbusch of Yupanqui's 45 minute musical rendition of El Payador Perseguido at the Embassy of Argentina in Washington D.C. in 2011, sponsored by the cultural attaché of the embassy, Francisco Achaval. Achaval described Baumbusch’s playing as embodying “supurb technique which, while listening, took me back to the deep heartland of my country; he has found a way to sing zambas from the bottom of his soul.”  

Baumbusch has also performed with many Balinese gamelan groups across the U.S., including Sekar Jaya of the Bay Area, Dharma Swara of New York, and Galak Tikka of Boston, and the Lightbulb Ensemble, which Baumbusch founded in 2013 to perform on new percussion instruments that Baumbusch built inspired by Indonesian gamelan instruments. Balinese scholar, author, and choreographer Dr. I Made Bandem describes Baumbusch as “a serious musician and composer whose profound understanding of Balinese music, dance, and culture has contributed a lot to the development of Balinese music.” Since 2014, Baumbusch has been the director of the U.C. Santa Cruz Balinese Gamelan ensemble, and he founded the Santa Clara University Balinese Gamelan ensemble in 2016. 

In 2012, Baumbusch produced a collaboration with the JACK Quartet and the Balinese ensemble Gamelan Makaradhwaja, directed by Dr. I Made Bandem and choreographer Dr. Suasthi Bandem. This collaboration premiered at the Bali Arts Festival in June, 2012. The Jakarta Post described the premiere saying "Baumbusch's overture was a grand and rich musical epic and instantly drew the crowd’s amazement. Its patterns were intricate, a testament of Baumbusch’s virtuosity and his ability to push the musicians to reveal the astounding ability of their instruments." Additionally, Baumbusch’s arrangements of several traditional gamelan pieces for string quartet are described by David Harrington (violinist and director of the Kronos Quartet) as “one of the finest attempts to bring the string quartet into the world of Gamelan music. For a composer so youthful to possess this expertise is a very hopeful sign.”  

Lightbulb Ensemble/Instrument Building: 

In 2013, Baumbusch founded The Lightbulb Ensemble, a new music percussion ensemble performing on instruments built and designed by Baumbusch that are inspired by the gamelan instruments of Bali. Baumbusch's instruments were built over an extended period between 2011 and 2021, and involve collaborations with Balinese instrument builders, metal sculptor Bernard Hosey, and Bay Area instrument builders Daniel Schmidt and Paul Dresher. The instruments have both parallels and departures from the gamelan instruments of Indonesia. Made out a diversity of materials including steel, cedar, bronze, and aluminum, the instruments demonstrate an exploration in a new direction in tuning and instrument design that combines practices from Bali with other practices from Baumbusch's musical background. Baumbusch’s acoustical approach to instrument building draws on  recent research by electrical engineer William Sethares (University of Wisconsin) which analyses the inharmonic partials (overtones) of metal keys and gong chimes to compare tuning theories across various musical cultures throughout Southeast Asia and Europe. Baumbusch’s unique tunings present a sonic world of instruments that shimmer and pulsate “like no other instruments on earth,” (Washington Post). In developing this sound world, Baumbusch draws on the music and instrument building practices of Balinese composers Dewa Alit (Gamelan Salukat) and I Made Subandi (Gamelan Ceraken) as well as American mavericks such as Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, Henry Cowell, James Tenney, and Conlon Nancarrow.  

The Lightbulb Ensemble was highlighted in November of 2013 at the Performing Indonesia Festival at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., where they represented an advent of global experimental performing ensembles drawing influence from the gamelan music of Indonesia. Between 2014-2016, Baumbusch collaborated with composer Wayne Vitale to create an evening length work for The Lightbulb Ensemble entitled Mikorkosma, which was released in 2017 on New World Records. The piece premiered alongside Gamelan Sekar Jaya at the Yerba Buena Center of San Francisco in May, 2015. In November of the same year, The Lightbulb Ensemble premiered Baumbusch’s 30-minute Hydrogen(2)Oxygen alongside of the JACK Quartet at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to critical acclaim. The following year, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Baumbusch to compose an evening length work for the Lightbulb Ensemble to present on their festival of “Islam in Indonesia.” The piece that resulted, Hamsa based on the five-pillars of Islam, featured music by Baumbusch, text by his brother Paul Baumbusch, and video art by South African video artist Chris Bisset, and premiered at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. in November of 2016. In the summer of 2018, the Lightbulb Ensemble was the only American group featured on the International Gamelan Festival in Munich, Germany, and performed at the Bayerische Rundfunk (Baverian Public Radio Center). 

In 2016, The Lightbulb Ensemble was awarded a $50,000 grant from the Wallis Alexander Gerbode Foundation in order to commission Baumbusch to build a second set of instruments and create an evening length work incorporating the new instruments. The resultant 90-minute work, The Pressure, uses a set of set of seven-tone metallophones made of aluminum and bronze inspired by the gamelan semar pegulingan instruments of Bali, in conjunction with a mixed chamber ensemble including SATB vocal quartet, Leslie organ, and string quartet. The Pressure was featured on the 24th Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, CA, and is a “horrortorio” (a phrase used by Other Minds director Charles Amirkhanin to describe the work) that draws inspiration from early 20th century German expressionist film to create a multi-media work that combines narration, graphic illustration, and music centered on a cautionary tale written by Paul Baumbusch based on a charlatan antihero reminiscent of the antiheroes of the German Expressionist era (e.g. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) that captivated audiences during the rise of fascism. 

In early 2022, with support from New World Records, Baumbusch donated the two sets of instruments that he built between 2010 and 2021 to the Balinese performing ensemble Nata Swara, directed by Putu Septa. Nata Swara, based in Ubud, Bali, recorded several of Baumbusch's works composed for these instruments for the album Chemistry for Gamelan and String Quartet in collaboration with the JACK Quartet. Nata Swara continues to perform and record on these instruments, developing new works by Balinese composers for the instruments as well as performing and recording works previously composed for the instruments between 2012-2021. 

Polytempo Music and Click Tracks: 

In March of 2020, Baumbusch was commissioned to compose Isotropes for the University of California (Santa Cruz) Wind Ensemble, a 25-minute piece that allows for each performer to record their part along to an individualized click track. This remote-learning piece allowed the ensemble to stay active during the shelter-in-place lockdown in response to the COVID-19. Learn more about Isotropes here.

Between June 2020 and the present, Baumbusch created a project centered around an 90-minute work entitled Polytempo Music. Inspired by the music of Conlon Nancarrow, which relied on the use of a mechanical player piano in order to concoct rhythmic structures that cannot be properly realized by unassisted human performers, Polytempo Music elicits the help of a complex digital clock vis-a-vis a 12-channel web of click-tracks, which provides each performer with their own individualized fluctuating pulse stream. Also drawing inspiration from Balinese gamelan music, Baumbusch’s Polytempo Music often uses a contrapuntal architecture similar to a style of counterpoint developed by Balinese composers, a colorful heterophonic stratification of melodies, which Baumbusch uses to create modal “murmurations” evoking the movement of flying starlings or the shoaling of fish. A large portion of Polytempo Music was composed by Baumbusch while in quarantine in Jakarta in 2022.  

Polytempo Music was devised to “premiere” in virtual reality, presenting an immersive environment where listeners can freely navigate a virtual 3D stage while the music swirls around the listeners via 12 moving virtual speakers. It is currently under development by Baumbusch in collaboration with Scott Looney and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and is slated to be released on the Oculus platform at the end of 2023. Polytempo Music is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Walter and Elise Haas Fund, The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, The Heller Foundation, and the Alice M. Ditson Fund.

Education, Teaching, Lecturing: 

Baumbusch attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy, received his undergraduate degree from Bard College, where he studied microtonal composition with Kyle Gann, and received his M.A. in composition from Mills College, where he studied under composers such as Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, and Zeena Parkins. Baumbusch received his DMA from U.C. Santa Cruz, studying primarily under Larry Polansky. Since 2014, Baumbusch has directed the U.C. Santa Cruz Balinese Gamelan ensemble. From 2016-2018, he taught composition, music theory, and music history on the faculty at Santa Clara University where he also founded and directed the Balinese Gamelan ensemble. Baumbusch has additionally lectured on composition and world music at the University of Maryland, The Smithsonian Institution, Stanford University, CalArts, Union College, Holy Cross, Bard College, The Interlochen Arts Academy, Cosumnes River College, Cal State Fullerton, U.N. Reno, and the Escuela TAI of Madrid. He has presented electronic music performances and lectures at UCSD, UCSB, CalArts, UNR and Mills College.