Charmaine Lee opens the night with a solo set on voice and electronics.

Afterwards, Gamelan Dharma Swara, New York’s premier Balinese performing arts ensemble, present a preview of their 2026 Bali tour. Invited to the prestigious Bali Arts Festival 2026, their program reflects a decade of self-exploration and experimentation, with both traditional and contemporary works, by Balinese and American composers and choreographers. This final hometown performance before the ensemble travels to Bali, will feature the world premiere of Lambda Serpentis, a new composition by Gamelan Dharma Swara’s longtime Artist-in-Residence, I Gusti Nyoman Darta, alongside Devour the Moon an exciting collaboration with Foreshadow Puppetry.

Gamelan Dharma Swara 

Musicians
Elizabeth Behrend
Stephanie Bruno Dixon
Oliver Budiardjo
Tom Burckhardt
Chris Canahui
Samir Chopra
Ari Dalbert
Paul Feitzinger
Calvin Grad
Charlie Gullion
Meesh Hauser
Ndaru Kartikaningsih
Rebbeca Klassen
I Gusti Nyoman Darta (Artist-in-Residence)
Victoria Lo Mellin
Annie McCutchan
Jose Mediavilla
Gary Meister
Joel Mellin
Vera Much
Christopher Romero
Gavin Ryan
Samantha Simorangkir
Bear Strayer

Dancers
Miranda Danusugondo
Ndaru Kartikaningsih
Sabrina Kiamilev
Verena Lee
Angela Nawang

Foreshadow Puppetry
Rosalind Lilly puppeteer
Gaby FeBland puppeteer
Leah Levine puppeteer

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.

Gamelan Dharma Swara—which translates as “a duty of perpetuating sound”—is one of the United States’ preeminent Balinese music and dance ensembles, and has been captivating audiences around the world with their raucous and wondrous performances for over 33 years and counting. The group performs a spellbinding blend of iconic traditional pieces paired with bold contemporary compositions, spanning some 500 years, and has been called “thrilling, mesmerizing and powerful” (New York Times) and “sublime, receiving perhaps the weekend’s most rapturous response” (The New Yorker).

The first non-Balinese gamelan invited to compete in the prestigious Bali Arts Festival, the group has toured Bali and performed at Lincoln Center at the invitation of The New York Philharmonic, BAM, MoMA, Central Park Summerstage, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Symphony Space, The Asia Society, National Sawdust, Basilica Hudson, and at Yale, Princeton and Columbia Universities.

Dharma Swara has commissioned and premiered works by contemporary composers including leading Balinese composer Gusti Komin—who has worked with the group as artist-in-residence since 2017, and whose composition Sari Ing Kerta the group premiered in 2018—in addition to Joel Mellin (Synesthesia, 2012 world premiere), Nerissa Campbell (Legian 1983/ Breathe My War, 2016), Matthew Welch (Bhima Swarga, 2006). The group has also performed works by many seminal Balinese composers, including Made Subandi’s Kupu-Kupu Kuning (2011 US premiere) and Dewa Ketut Alit’s Cecanangan and Geregel (2015 US premiere).

Charmaine Lee (b. 1991) is an Australian vocalist based in New York. Using the voice, feedback, and live processing, Lee’s practice is primarily concerned with risk-taking, playfulness, and improvisation. She has been recognized as “extraordinary” by New Yorker and has been featured in New York Times, Washington Post, and Wire Magazine. As a composer, Lee has collaborated with leading ensembles including Jack Quartet and the Wet Ink Ensemble. Her long-standing collaborators include Conrad Tao, Eric Wubbels, and Ikue Mori (MacArthur Fellow). Lee co-runs a record label with Randall Dunn, Kou Records, dedicated to artists who have developed singular musical languages. Lee is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow (2025-28), Emergent Ventures winner (2024), a Roulette Van Lier Fellow (2021), and an ISSUE Project Room Artist-in-Residence (2019). “Extraordinary” – Steve Smith, The New Yorker