ABOUT THE BAND

Purnamasari performs music featuring Indonesian Gamelan instruments and movements drawn from Balinese dance vocabulary. Made up of SF Bay Area musicians that play both gamelan and western music, you can revel in the rhythms and melodies that come from mixing guitars with exotic gamelan instruments, and dance to eco-conscious tunes in the spirit of rock and roll. Purnamasari means ‘Essence of the Full Moon. Purnamasari grew out of the Indonesian American Cross Cultural Music Project, a collaboration between Lisa Graciano and gamelan player Paul Miller, and includes musicians Megan Hewitt, Patrick Liddell and Richard Phillips.
Click below to find out more about the
INDONESIAN AMERICAN CROSS CULTURAL MUSIC PROJECT

Core Musicians

           Paul Miller

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Paul Miller received a B.A. in music from Brandeis University, was introduced to gamelan at Mills College, and has since spent several years in Indonesia, learning Balinese gamelan with the late Wayang Loceng and other master musicians.  He is a member of SF Bay Area gamelan groups Gadung Kasturi, Sari Raras, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and Shadowlight Productions, and has been performing with them for many years. He specializes in Gender Wayang music. He has given private gamelan lessons and several of his beginning students have gone on to study with masters in Bali. Paul arranges the gamelan parts in the music for Purnamasari and plays various gamelan instruments in the group.

                     Lisa Graciano

Lisa Graciano, is a Bay Area performer and songwriter. Her music was featured on KCSN radio, Mz Dee's Medicine Show, Voice of America television program "Dunia Kita”, and KPFA’s Music of the World. Her CD “Seeds of Life” was released in 2013. She has had formal training in Singapore through classical music, was part of the alternative music scene in Manila, spent many years as a musician in the folk, jazz and blues music circuit in Amsterdam and made two cd albums there. Lisa also studied a few Balinese dances in Jakarta when she was young. Being involved with groups like Gamelan Sekar Jaya through learning and performing with them, has deepened her knowledge of Balinese music and has inspired her to compose music for Purnamasari. Lisa recently took part in QuaranPalooza Livestream Music Fest, and played the characters of Aissa and the Old Woman in By Mouth’s podplay of Joseph Conrad’s Outcast of the Islands.

Patrick Liddell

Patrick Liddell is a musician living in Oakland, CA. His solo music project, ontologist, has released five albums to date, including the most recent, a double vinyl release in June of 2021. Patrick received his doctoral degree in music composition from Northwestern University. Through 2005-2008 Patrick collaborated with over 500 artists to create music videos to accompany the NYC "60x60" music series. In 2011, he gained international renown with his YouTube experiment "Video Room 1000", with millions of views and countless online articles written on its cultural significance. He has toured in Europe, Australia, Indonesia, and America with a number of outfits, including The Zvooks (Jump Up! Records Chicago; Mad Butcher, Germany), Function Ensemble (Locust Records, Chicago; Black Maps, UK). Patrick also plays with Sari Raras, the Javanese gamelan ensemble at UC Berkeley and with Gamelan Encinal, the New American gamelan at Mills College. He plays trombone in the soul/funk cover outfit Steady Eddy And The Shakers, plays jazz piano for cafés in Oakland and SF, and teaches concert and jazz band to high schoolers in Dublin, CA. He's the bass player in Punamasari.

                               Megan Hewitt

Megan Robin Hewitt PhD is an Oakland-based musician, Indonesian/Malay translator, documentary filmmaker, and the Executive Director of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS), a non-profit which promotes research collaboration in Indonesian Studies. She grew up playing classical piano as well as performing with a steel drum ensemble in Florida. She first learned Balinese gamelan at Florida State University which became part of her impetus for pursuing a graduate degree in Indonesian Studies at UC Berkeley. Her research on Indonesian literature, performance arts, and contemporary social movements in Indonesia led to her involvement with the greater community of Indonesian artists and musicians in the Bay Area. Having joined Purnamasari and Gamelan Sekar Jaya at the start of 2019, she is thrilled to perform among a thriving community of artists and musicians working to bring Indonesian arts into the contemporary music scene in the Bay Area. Megan and her partner, Garna Raditya, also create music as an indie rock duo called, Antaralain. Translated into English, AmongOthers, is also the name of their video production and translation agency that creates short video documentaries focused on individuals in creative industries, often with an emphasis on cross cultural Indonesian-American connections.
See details of upcoming concert and buy tickets at www.sfiaf.org/2021_purnamasari

                                  Richard Phillips

Richard H. Phillips is a multi-instrumentalist musician, and the songwriter, guitarist and vocalist for Golden Path, an SF Bay Area indie rock band. He performs as half of a duet with musician and composer Barbara Golden, and plays Balinese gamelan music with Gamelan Sekar Jaya and Gadung Kasturi.

MUSICIANS WHO HAVE PERFORMED IN PURNAMASARI IN THE PAST

Barbara Golden
Emily K Rolph
Made Putrayasa
Ed Garcia
Maurissa Dorn
Zach Hejny
Mike Toth
John Foster
Kris Jones
Rick Auerbach
John Waller
Reiko Hasegawa

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