Asian conference-festival is music to local composers' ears

Asian conference-festival is music to local composers' ears

By Slamet A. Sjukur

JAKARTA (JP): The country will act as host to a great event
next week for local composers and musicians, especially those who
are engaged in contemporary and traditional music.

The 20th Asian Composers League (ACL) Conference-Festival will
be held for the first time in the country. It will take place in
Yogyakarta from Sept. 2 to Sept. 5 and in Surakarta from Sept. 6
to Sept. 8.

There will be seven concerts of two hours each, two
competitions for young composers up to 30 years of age, the ACL
Young Composers Award and Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, which is
restricted to young composers of the host country. Other
activities include three workshops on the themes of music and
education, computers and music and the material to the soul of
gamelan, a seminar on the spiritualism of sound and structure in
contemporary music, and an exhibition-bazaar of traditional
instruments from all over Indonesia.

There also will be the country reports of the 12 country
members of the ACL, the executive committee meeting and the
general assembly.

With the support of the Directorate of Arts, Directorate
General of Culture and the main sponsor, the Ford Foundation, the
Indonesian Composers Association (AKI) is responsible for the
whole program.

The festival is held annually, with last year's event held in
Taipei and the preceding year in Manila. Yokohama is scheduled
next year.

As one might expect, the ACL's theme emphasizes the identity
of Asian music. In Manila it focused on "Theories of Music
Composition from Music Ensemble in Asia" and in Taipei it was
"Discovery of Asian Music: Discovering the Significance of
Oriental Philosophy in Music".

AKI considers that it is best not to let ourselves become
entangled in an endless East-West dichotomy. It is time to live
with a whole, open mind. Indonesia's theme is Maha-Swara (Deep
Sound), that is, the sound emanating from the depth.

Inspired by the works of Hazrat Inayat Khan (the mysticism of
sound in the sufi message), Baghwan Shree Rajneesh (the book of
the secrets), Tomatis (La Nuit Uterine/the universe of sound in
the uterus) and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, we arrive at the
conclusion that almost every music culture originated in the
realm of spiritual needs in the widest sense of its meaning. The
creation of instruments, compositions and their contents were
always signified by organized sounds; their structures were in
the realm of spiritual and even cosmological considerations.

Our modern era of information with its digital global networks
tends to forget such basic human needs in favor of quantitative
and countable considerations.

How can contemporary composers contribute to this situations
in order to balance the possible alienations of humankind from
itself?

To meet the depth of the theme, AKI planned to invite highly
qualified observers such as A.A. Tomatis of France, prominent
Indian philosopher-musician Bhaskar Candavarkar, Indonesians
Djelantik, who lives in Denpasar, Kuntar Wiryamartana from Sanata
Dharma University, Yogyakarta, and members of the Hardo Pusoro
Association from Purworejo, Central Java.

In his lifelong research, Tomatis, the French specialist in
oto-rhino-laryngology, audiology and phonology, discovered that
the ear is one of the parts of the human body which is formed
first and perfectly in the fetus. It means the fetus
unconsciously aware of what is outside of its own body. Hearing
is the first contact and the first awareness of human memory.

When a person is dying and when most parts
of the body do not function anymore, hearing is the last
connection with the world which he or she is leaving. It is for
this very reason that there are traditions to help the dying
through whispering soothing words or spiritual advice.

The message of sound as the heart of the problem in music is
more constructive and relevant than exploring the East-West
conflict.

The festival also is an opportunity for Indonesia to reveal
its potential in contemporary music. The gondang (tuned
drums) from the Batak people of North Sumatra, the gamelan and
the choral way of singing in Flores are only few examples of
traditions which are inspiring for new Indonesian music. We also
have the phenomenal pianist-composer Ananda Sukarlan, who lives
in Spain and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the
pianist with the most pieces of music dedicated to him by living
-- a total of 38 -- composers. We also have Paul Gutama Soegijo,
an Indonesian composer who has lived in Berlin for more than 30
years and who is famous in prestigious international festivals.

We expect also the best performances of the best music from
Australia, Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Korea,
New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

But the best is an enemy of practical good sense; there should
be a certain tolerance between what is ideal and what is
possible.

Due to problems with timing, the number of musical scores
submitted to the committee is only 48, that is only about 25
percent of what is usual for such an important festival. Lucky
composers obtained the "Call for Score" less than two months
before the deadline (normally one year in advance), and many more
composers did not get any information at all. The chance to have
more choices of solid music is consequently little.

Time management is a big problem for the organizing committee,
especially when clear insight into designation of tasks is not
shared properly.

People become crazily busy, have no time to communicate with
each other and lose sight of what priorities are. Then, as usual,
a banal scapegoat appears: financial difficulty. It is ironic
that art management lacks creativity in problem solving.

However, the 20th ACL Conference-Festival is conceived as the
sound emanating from the depth of time and bringing hope for the
coming millennium.

Distinguished French musicologist Francois Picard of the
Sorbonne University in Paris will give a seminar on the function
of voice in the Tibetan ritual.

Jose Maceda, the celebrated composer and Professor Emiritus of
Philippines University, will present his music.

Cross-cultural music of the famous Irwansyah Harahap will
also be in the program of Maha-Swara.

The writer is a composer.