Bali waits for blockbuster melodies

By Johannes Simbolon

DENPASAR (JP): Dozens of composers from the U.S., Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore arrived here yesterday for a gathering at the Bali Cliff Resort, south of here, where fellow composers from Indonesia had arrived one day earlier.

It was a rare and unprecedented encounter.

It's not a competition, but unique cooperation. They will be working together to compose melodies until the end of this month, despite language and culture barriers.

Antero Paivalainen, vice president of the Los Angeles-based International Federation for the Organization of Festivals, calls the gathering a "Songwriters Summit". The organizing committee itself has named it the "Pacific Music Rainbow".

Expectations and excitement are high on the part of the Indonesian composers, who see it as a very rare event.

"I have had in my mind some tones for the future songs," Youngki Soewarno told reporters the day before the meeting started.

Bali is waiting for the birth of a number of new songs, even masterpieces, which is only natural because the participants of the gathering are all masters in music.

Most of the foreign participants are members of the U.S. music industry, so that some people are simply calling the event a meeting of American and Indonesian songwriters.

Idol

Some of the participants are well known to music lovers in this country. There is Tommy Page, a youth idol in many parts of the world, including Indonesia.

Then there are Rudolf Shenker and Klaus Meine of the Scorpions, the pop rock group from Germany which also has a multitude of fans here and Dave Koz, the saxophonist who once toured this country.

The others are also great music talents, although they are less known to the Indonesian public in general. Worldwide people are more familiar with singers than composers.

The "behind-celebrated-singers" songwriters include Allan Rich, who was nominated for Oscar and Grammy awards for his song Run to You sung by Whitney Houston in the film Bodyguard, and who wrote I Don't have the Heart for James Ingram and I Live for Your Love for Natalie Cole.

There is also Brenda Russel, the writer of such hits as Piano in the Dark and Get Here, as well as many melodies sung by such big names as Tina Turner, Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston.

Also attending are Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw, songwriters for such super-groups as the Damn Yankees, and Alan Roy Scott, winner of many international song festivals, as well as Garry Burr, a celebrated country songwriter and Jeff Lorber, a renowned jazz fusion artist and Lisa Fischer, who wrote the breakthrough hit How Can I Ease the Pain.

The Indonesian group includes the "woman who never grows old", Titiek Puspa, the sentimental Rinto Harahap and the fat and flamboyant Farid Harja. Other names are Tito Soemarsono, Youngki Soewarno, Bartje van Houten, Chacken M, Dadang S. Manaf, Januar Ishak, James F. Sundah, Ekki Soekarno, Oddi Agam, Ebiet G. Ade, Irianti Erningpraja, Amin Ivo's, Franky Sahilatua and Ireng Maulana. These people have reigned in the world of Indonesian pop songs and jazz for several decades.

Yesterday evening, the composers drew lots to find who would team up with whom.

"In case that they feel the pairs decided upon in the lot drawing do not match, they may later change partners," Bob Tutupoly, spokesman of the organizing committee, told reporters.

Meeting

Chris Pattikawa, chairman of the organizing committee, has worked hard to make the meeting happen.

Chris told The Jakarta Post that he met Antero during the music market in Cannes one-and-a-half years ago. Antero offered the idea of holding a songwriters meeting in Indonesia, the kind he helped to organize in Moscow in 1988 and in Rumania in 1994 where local composers met with international composers, especially from the United States.

"Several countries, including China and Japan, then proposed that they hold the unique meeting," recalled Antero.

Chris gladly accepted the idea of a festival, and eventually Indonesia was chosen as the site.

Right after the Bali gathering, the International Song Festival will be held in Jakarta from Nov. 1 to Nov. 2. During the event, an international seminar will also be held to discuss such topics as copyrights and artist management.

On Nov. 4, a charity night will be held at the Jakarta Convention Center where Indonesian artists and their American counterparts like Tommy Page, Dave Koz and the Nelson Brothers will play gigs. At the same event, the Pacific Music Rainbow songwriters will also have a chance to sing the works they have composed in Bali during a jam session.