Mikrokosma is the 2015 collaboration between composers Wayne Vitale and Brian Baumbusch, and live media artist Ian Winters. The music was performed by the Lightbulb Ensemble, using newly-constructed and tuned instruments. Mikrokosma explores the musical and visual ideas of the "microcosms" of Balinese cosmology, through the lens of contemporary gamelan and Western art traditions. Each of the 11 movements is based on the number 11 and a sequence of scale degrees associated with colors, directions, and qualities – all of significance in Balinese cosmology.
Mikrokosma was premiered on May 1-2, 2015 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, presented by Gamelan Sekar Jaya in its 35th Anniversary Concert.
Work sample cues:
• Cue 1 – 4:06 to 8:20. Music by W. Vitale (“Selunding”)
• Cue 2 – 8:20 to 15:26. Music by B. Baumbusch (“Pomp”)
• Cue 3 – 15:53 to 18:00. Highlighting live media by Ian Winters (“Gineman”).
• Cue 4 – 21:04 to 24:40. Music by W. Vitale (“Dance”)
The musicians of LBE are Brian Baumbusch, Maurissa Dorn, Dave Douglas, Carla Fabrizio, Lucas Helland, James Iwamasa, Sarang Kim, Lydia Martin, Keenan Pepper, Scott Siler, Wayne Vitale, and Sarah Willner.
Mikrokosma was generously supported by a Gerbode-Hewlett Foundations Music Commissioning Award; by the East Bay Fund for Artists, a program of the East Bay Community Foundation (supported through a nationwide initiative of the Ford Foundation with grants from the James Irvine Foundation and from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation); and by individual donors.
