Dewa Ketut Alit (music director, Gamelan Salukat) was born to a family of artists in Pengosekan village in Bali and was immersed in Balinese gamelan from early childhood, performing in his village’s adult group by the age of 13.  In 1997, seeking to renew and reinvigorate his tradition, Dewa Alit and his brothers founded Gamelan Cudamani. The group toured the US in 2005 and 2006, including a concert at Cal Performances, featuring Dewa Alit’s original compositions.  Generally acknowledged as the leading Balinese composer of his generation, he has composed dozens of works for gamelans in Bali and abroad, including five new works for Gamelan Galak Tika which have been performed at Zankel Hall, the Bang on a Can Marathon, Southern Exposure, and numerous other venues in the US.  He holds ongoing residencies at the University of British Columbia, MIT, and Helena College in Perth, Australia.  An avid lover of jazz, he has participated in jam sessions and collaborations Tokyo, Boston, Vancouver, and Denpasar.  He founded Gamelan Salukat in 2007.

Kadek Dewi Aryani (Penari, Rantun, Camplung, Lèyak), choreographer and dancer, was born in 1977 in Karangasem, the ancient and very traditional eastern area of Bali.  She is one of the most promising talents of a new generation of Balinese performers, combining the strong roots of Balinese tradition with new contemporary approaches in her creative performance.  She has appeared in Robert Wilson's epic I La Galigo and was invited to dance with Gamelan Cudamani at the World Festival Of Sacred Music in Los Angeles. She maintains an active performer of traditional and experimental dance in Bali, and is also a principal dancer in the multi-national cast of Kobalt Works, a European dance troupe that has performed in Belgium, the Netherlands and France. 

Bang on a Can All-Stars, named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year in 2005, have been heralded as “the country’s most important vehicle for contemporary music” by the San Francisco Chronicle.  Founded in 1992 by the Bang on a Can Festival, the All-Stars quickly forged a distinct identity and have come to be known worldwide for their ultra-dynamic live performances and recordings of today’s most innovative music. The group’s celebrated projects and collaborations include their landmark recordings of Brian Eno’s ambient classic Music for Airports and Terry Riley’s In C, as well as live performances with Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Don Byron, Iva Bittova, Thurston Moore, and others.  Recent highlights include the world premiere of Steve Reich’s 2x5 on the 2009 Manchester Festival, sharing the bill with legendary German electronica pioneers Kraftwerk, the US tour and Carnegie Hall performance of Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer, an evening-length staged concert with Trio Mediaeval, and world premieres of new works by Louis Andriessen, Bill Frisell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and more.

Timur Bekbosunov (tenor, Walter Spies) is a recognized interpreter of contemporary opera in the U.S.  Recent productions include Robert Woodruff/Evan Ziporyn’s 2004 Oedipus at the American Repertory Theater; the premiere of Jeffrey Brody’s Jabberwocky with the Salem Philharmonic; the role of Electrician in the Los Angeles premiere of Powder Her Face by Thomas Ades, conducted by the composer; appearances in the Midwest premieres of The Death of Orpheus by Gian-Carlo Menotti and Meyer Kupferman’s In a Garden; Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, directed by Ken Cazan; Macheath in Threepenny Opera at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.  He is a coordinator of the Art of Opera, a non-profit organization committed to the development of contemporary opera, and a creative director of Masque Films, an unconventional music video and film production company. He can be heard on Hawaii Public Radio, Radio NS, Kol Israel, Reka Radio, and on the most recent CD release of the band Devotchka.           

Ashley Bathgate (cello) has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, Barge Music, Le Poisson Rouge and Merkin Hall in New York, the Beijing Music Festival, and at additional festivals and venues worldwide.  She made her official New York Debut in Carnegie’s Weill Hall with noted pianist Todd Crow in 2008.  She has recently appeared with the Greater Newburgh Symphony and the Yale Philharmonia, with the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the Windham Chamber Players and in performances of the d’Albert and Barber cello concertos with the American Symphony Orchestra, directed by Leon Botstein.  Ashley was a full scholarship student at Bard college and received her Master's Degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale University School of Music where she studied with Aldo Parisot.  Ashley's newly formed Lorien Trio received the Bronze Medal at the 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
                       
Robert Black (bass), a founding member of the Bang on a Can All–Stars, tours the world playing solo concerts on the double bass, as well as working with composers from all walks of life – from John Cage to DJ Spooky - creating unheard of music for the double bass.  His concert collaborations include Brazilian painters, Japanese choreographers, English actors, and musicians from every corner of the globe.  He is on the faculty at both the Hartt and Manhattan Schools of Music, as well as teaching regularly at the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho (Brazil). He received a 1998 Bessie Award for his collaborative work with The School of Hard Knocks in NYC. His solo CDs are State of the Bass (O.O. Discs), The Complete Bass Music of Christian Wolff (Mode Records), The Complete Bass Music of Giacinto (Mode Records) and an up-coming 2 CD set of mid 20th Century American Bass Music. Robert has also recorded for Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Koch International, CRI, Neuma Records, Gasparo, Opus One, Artifact Recordings, and Folkways Records.

Oana Botez-Ban (costume design), a native of Romania, has designed for major theater and dance companies including The National Theater of Bucharest and was involved in different international theater festivals such as the Quadrennial Scenography Show in Prague. Oana is part of the first Romanian theater design catalogue, Scenografica. Since 1999, her New York costume collaborations in theater and dance include Robert Woodruff, Richard Foreman, Maya Beiser, Richard Schechner, Blanka Zizka, Brian Kulick, Zelda Fichlander, Karin Coonrod, Jay Scheib, Eduardo Machado, Gus Solomon Jr. & Paradigm, Carmen de Lavallade, Dusan Tynek, Gisela Cardenas, Pavol Liska, Matthew Neenan, Molissa Fenley, Zishan Ugurlu, Erin Mee, Judith Ren-Lay, Michael Sexton, Pig Iron Company, Play Company, Charles Moulton, Loy Arcenas, and Ripe Time. She holds an MFA in design from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts and has been a Princess Grace Recipient and an NEA/TCG Fellow.
           
Jennifer Bowman (stage manager)

Sara Brown (scenic design) earned her BA at Gustavus Adolphus College and her MFA in scenic design at the University of Virginia. She continued at UVa for two years as a lecturer and a guest artist. As a scenic artist, she has painted for The Guthrie Theatre, The Children’s Theatre Company, and the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. She has designed scenery in Minneapolis for Stepping Stone Theatre and Starting Gate Theatre and in Charlottesville, Virginia at The Ashlawn Opera Festival, Heritage Repertory Theatre, and Live Arts. She is the resident scenic designer for the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Company in Washington DC. She is currently the Director of Design in the Theatre Department of MIT.

I Nyoman Catra (Kesyur, Bapak, Kalèr, Sagami) is a master of traditional Balinese masked dance and puppetry, specializing in the roles of the clowns.  He has performed in Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia, India and Australia.  In the United States, he has appeared with Julie Taymor at LaMama and at the Henson International Puppet Festival with Larry Reed.  he co-created a Balinese Tempest with Ron Jenkins, and was featured soloist in Robert Woodruff/Evan Ziporyn’s Oedipus at the American Repertory Theater in 2004. He holds a Masters in Theater from Emerson University and a PhD in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan, and has taught Balinese performing arts at Eastman, Holy Cross, and MIT where he co-founded Gamelan Galak Tika.  He is on the faculty at the ISI National Arts Academy in Denpasar, and runs a traditional sanggar [dance training program] in his home village of Mengwi.

Vicky Chow (piano & keyboards) has performed extensively as a classical and contemporary soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member. She has performed in New York at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, The Guggenheim Museum, The Stone, Le Poisson Rouge, and more; and has been a guest artist in the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Music Festival, Golandsky Institute International Piano Festival, the f(x) New Music Marathon in Miami, Desert Chamber Music Society, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Las Vegas Music Festival.  She has received grants and support from Canada Council of the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and the Vancouver Foundation. Vicky made her orchestral debut at the age of 10 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Symphony, The Vancouver Academy Orchestra, White Rock Festival String Orchestra and the B.C. Sinfonietta. In 2010, she will be releasing her first solo piano album of music by composer Ryan Anthony Francis under John Zorn’s label ‘tzadik.’ 

Andrew Cotton (sound design/engineer), in his role as tour manager and engineer, works closely with composers and musicians including several major London producers, specializing in contemporary music projects with artists and concert series as diverse as Elvis Costello & John Harle, the BBC Promenade Series, Meltdown, George Russell, Carla Bley,& Talvin Singh. He collaborates with composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Evan Ziporyn on their pieces for the All-Stars as well as large ensemble, dance & theatre pieces.

Anne Harley (soprano, Margaret Mead) specializes in music from the most groundbreaking contemporary composers as well as in music from predominantly oral traditions. She performs with Opera Boston, The American Repertory Theatre, The Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Camerata, the Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta, Canada) and at the Tanglewood Festival. The Boston Globe acclaimed her performance in Peter Eotvos's Angels in Americaas “vocally and dramatically outstanding.”The Village Voice described her performance at BAM as transmitting a “heart-wrenching purity.” Her solo performances are released on Naxos, Sony Classics, Dorian, and Musica Omnia. Dr. Harley leads the groundbreaking Russian music ensemble, TALISMAN, with Oleg Timofeyev (www.talismanmusic.org). Their first recording project won the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society and garnered praise from Gramophone. Since then, the group has recorded CDs of early Russian and Roma (Gypsy) music. She joined the faculty of Scripps College in 2009.

Derek Johnson (guitar) is a composer, electric guitarist and educator active in the world of contemporary concert music and beyond.  His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and Canada by leading soloists and ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW and Montreal’s Nouvel Ensemble Moderne.  He is a founding member in the virtuoso chamber ensemble BASILICA and a regular performer with the post-rock improvisation collective the goodhands team.  Johnson has performed internationally with the Bang On A Can All-Stars in collaboration with guest artists Iva Bittova, Don Byron, Bill Frisell, Glenn Kotche (Wilco), Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Steve Reich and Ryuichi Sakamoto.  He has served as a faculty member in the music department of Columbia College Chicago, as an Associate Instructor of Composition at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music and as faculty at the Bang On A Can Summer Institute.  He is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Ball State University School of Music. Derek is an avid transcriber and is currently working in collaboration with the innovative Swedish band Meshuggah on a series of transcription books encompassing the band’s complete discography.

Peter Ksander (lighting design) is a stage designer whose credits include: Untitled Mars (this title may change) [Obie Award], The Making of Americans, Oh What War, Othello, Problem Radicals, Sine Wave Goodbye, and This Place is a Desert. He is a curator for the Ontological Hysteric Incubator.

Desak Made Suarti Laskmi (Penari,Ibu, Penyanyi Kekawin) is a performer of Balinese dance, arja (opera) and gamelan, and is one of only two internationally performed female composers from Bali. She received degrees from the National College of the Arts (ISI) in Denpasar and from Brown University. Her innovative compositions for gamelan and chorus have been featured annually at the Bali International Arts Festival since 1986. She has toured extensively in Australia, Europe, India, Japan, Canada and the United States. Since 1985 she has been on the ISI faculty; she has also taught classes at Clark University, Emerson College, Eastman School of Music, and MIT, where she co-founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993.  From 2001-2005 she was the inaugural Ford Foundation Professor of Balinese Performing Arts at Holy Cross.

Eduardo Leandro (percussion)

Laine Rettmer (assistant director) graduated with honors from NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing in 07 with a focus in theater direction. She is pleased to have assisted Jay Scheib on Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) in both America and Hungary, and is currently assisting him on the upcoming production of Bellona: Destroyer of Worlds, premiering at the Kitchen in NYC this spring. Upcoming Laine will be directing a reading of a new play by Benjamin Forster, and acting in Charles Mee’s newest play with the theater company, Witness Relocation.
           
Todd Reynolds (violin) is well known for his work with the string group, ETHEL, which he founded in 1999; he is also recognized as a composer, electronic musician, conductor and improviser across style and genre. With roots in the Bang on a Can, post-minimal scene, Reynolds counts among his many notable collaborations work with The Steve Reich Ensemble, The Silk Road Project, Bang on a Can, and indie-sensations, The Books. Today, he continues in both the acoustic and electronic worlds and is featured in Meredith Monk’s recent Songs of Ascension. His own Still Life with Microphone, a site-specific, laptop-driven concert theater piece, currently tours with artist Luke DuBois and film of Bill Morrison, and his teaching residencies at universities across the nation include creativity conversations, traditional and non-traditional master-classes, composer forums and software integration. Reynolds uses a laptop as a constant second instrument, employing digital sound processing along with his traditional violin, creating a hybrid "digital fiddle" to realize his and other's compositions in real time.

Gamelan Salukat was founded by Dewa Ketut Alit in 2007.  Based in Pengosekan VIllage, it is dedicated to performing experimental works with roots in Balinese tradition.  For this performance, the group is joined by members of Gamelan Cenik Wayan of Ubud Village, Putu Adi Septa Sewaca Putra, coordinator.

Kenny Savelson (executive director/producer Bang on a Can) has managed the creation, production, and touring of all of Bang on a Can's current programs since 1997.  Under his administrative leadership, Bang on a Can has grown from an annual New York festival into a multi-faceted international organization with year-round programming. Savelson has produced over 30 Bang on a Can Marathon concerts at venues throughout New York City, the US and internationally. He has developed the Bang on a Can All-Stars touring projects worldwide since 1998 and its acclaimed collaborations with many of the most celebrated artists in the contemporary field such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Brian Eno, and more.  Staged production credits include Steel Hammer (Carnegie Hall 2009), A House in Bali (Cal Performances 2009), Lightening at our feet (BAM Next Wave 2008)  the oratorio Lost Objects (BAM Next Wave 2004), the comic-book opera The Carbon Copy Building (Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Settembre Musica Torino 2000), among others.  Together with Bang on a Can artistic directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, Savelson is a co-founder of Cantaloupe Music, an independent record label with over 40 recordings released since 2001.  Savelson began his career in arts administration and production by arranging tours for his own rock groups throughout the late '80s and '90s.  As a drummer, he has toured and recorded with a variety of bands over the last 20 years in the United States, Europe, and Japan and continues to record and perform as a drummer in New York.

Jay Scheib (director) has been developing new works for performance for over ten years in the US and throughout Europe. Recent productions include the Obie Award winning documentary performance Untitled Mars (This Title May Change) which premiered at Performance Space 122 in New York and the live-cinema performance event This Place is a Desert, which premiered at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art last year followed by a sold-out run at the Public Theater in NYC as part of the Under the Radar Festival. Scheib also collaborated with acclaimed punk rock ensemble The World Inferno Friendship Society in the creation of a multi-media music theater performance titled Addicted to Bad Ideas, Peter Lorre’s 20th Century. Addicted to Bad Ideas premiered at Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and made its New York City debut as part of the Under the Radar Festival/Public Theater and has since performed widely in the US and throughout Europe. In 2006, he directed the critically acclaimed Women Dreamt Horses by Argentinean author Daniel Veronese at Performance Space 122 as part of BAiT – Buenos Aires in Translation. Recent international works include a performance installation at Raum (Space) Bologna, as part of the Xing Festival, with his Shakespeare adaptation All Good Everything Good with Italian singer Margareth Kammerer. Other international works include the world premier of Irene Popovic's opera Mozart Luster Lustik at the Sava Center in Belgrade, Serbia and a new staging of the Novoflot science fiction opera saga, Kommander Kobayashi at the Saarlandisches Staatstheater in Saarbruecken, Germany.

Jay Scheib is currently Associate Professor for Music and Theater Arts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he recently received the Edgerton Award, given to one junior faculty member per year. He is a past recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts / Theater Communications Group program for directors, and is a regular guest professor at both the Mozarteum Institute für Regie und Schauspiel in Salzburg, Austria and the Norwegian Theatre Academy in Norway.

Paul Schick (libretto) is the artistic director of Real Time Opera and has presented numerous world premieres of new operas.  He has written three operas with composer Dan Plonsey, all produced in San Francisco. He also designed and directed Wayan Wija/Evan Ziporyn’s Shadow Bang. He has served on the directing staffs of San Francisco Opera, Vienna State Opera, Opera alla Scala and the Salzberg Summer Festival and has created music videos for a Monteverdi opera, a Ben Johnson masque and short works for numerous contemporary composers. Schick has written two books of poetry and a variety of musical scores. He received a PhD in Musicology from Yale.

Christine Southworth (consultant) is a composer, artistic director of Ensemble Robot and general manager of Gamelan Galak Tika.  Employing sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generator to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seismic data from volcanoes, Southworth makes music based on an interaction between science, technology and creativity and works to promote a brand new genre of music to Boston, born out of the area’s complex community of scientists and artists. She founded and co-curated, with Evan Ziporyn, the first biannual Beeline Festival last spring.  She is currently working on two commissions, from The Explorers Club and Bang on a Can Peoples’ Commissioning Fund, for The Calder Quartet with Andrew W.K. and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

Peter Tantsits (Colin McPhee)

Thirteen-year-old Nyoman Triyana Usadhi (Sampih) is the son of Nyoman Catra and Desak Madé Suarti Laksmi.  Born in Massachusetts, he began dancing at the age of six, performing as a featured soloist with Gamelan Galak Tika in Boston and Dharma Swara in New York.  Since returning to Bali in 2005, he has intensified his training, and recently performed lead roles in two productions at the 2009 Bali International Arts Festival. A House In Bali marks Nyoman’s first appearance in a Western opera. 

Evan Ziporyn (composer)’s work is colored by his 30-year involvement with Balinese music, which like Colin McPhee’s began with a chance hearing of a recording.  Within months he found his way to the Bay Area to work with the newly formed Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and 1981 began the first of numerous extended research trips to Bali, including a 1987 Fulbright Fellowship.  He also performed with Gamelan Sekar Jaya on their landmark 1985 and 1992 concert tours of the island  In 1990 he began composing an ongoing series of groundbreaking cross-cultural works, combining gamelan with saxophones, guitars, electronics, Chinese and African instruments, and full orchestra. He founded Gamelan Galak Tika in 1993, dedicating the group to new music by both Balinese and American composers.  In 2004 he brought the group to John Adam’s In Your Ear! Festival in Zankel Hall, where his music was hailed by the New York Times Anne Midgette as ‘an exuberant blast of metal fireworks.’  His 2001 fusion opera, ShadowBang, a collaboration with master Balinese dalang Wayan Wija, was the centerpiece of the 2006 Amsterdam GrachtenFest at the newly built Muziekgebouw.

As a clarinetist, Ziporyn has toured the globe with the All-stars since their formation in 1992.  He redefined the instrument with his 2001 solo CD This is Not a Clarinet, which made numerous Top Ten lists across America and was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”  He recorded the definitive version of Steve Reich’s solo clarinet New York Counterpoint for Nonesuch and, as a member of the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Grammy Award winning Music for 18 Musicians. His music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film "Tail-enders", and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film "Fallen." He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, and Ethel.

His work as a composer and performer led to his receiving the 2007 USArtists Walker Fellowship and 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, Maya Beiser, So Percussion, Nederlands Blazers, the American Repertory Theater, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD Frog’s Eye.  Recordings of his works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI.  He has collaborated with some of the worlds most creative and vital living musicians, including Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, and Kyaw Kyaw Naing.  He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Upcoming projects include a solo drum set work for Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, and a concerto for tabla master Sandeep Das.

About Bang on a Can
Formed in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Bang on a Can is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording innovative and exciting contemporary music. Bang on a Can plays “a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn’t concern itself with boundaries... If music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come.”  (New York Times) Bang on a Can has been building audiences for twenty-two years, growing from a one-day festival into a renowned and multi-faceted organization. Current projects include festival concerts and the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People's Commissioning Fund, a program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, a professional development program for young composers and performers; and cross-disciplinary collaborations with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, and filmmakers. For up-to-date information regarding Bang on a Can programs, events, and CD releases, please visit our website at www.bangonacan.org, call us at 718-852-7755 or email us at info@bangonacan.org.