Bamboo Symphony soothes audience

Bamboo Symphony soothes audience

By Riyadi Suparno

JAKARTA (JP): Flutes do not often take center stage in
traditional Balinese music, with the percussion usually
dominating. However, Saturday night's performance of Balinese
gamelan at the Jakarta Playhouse (GKJ) might help to alter that
common arrangement.

Bamboo Symphony, as the name indicates, tries to better the
position of the "marginalized" instruments, according to composer
I Nyoman Windha.

As so the first composition was led by bamboo flutes, with two
female singers chanting in accompaniment.

"Here, I'm uplifting the position of flutes, which represent
the unimportant, the deprived, the marginalized and the weak, to
achieve a better position," he said.

From flutes Windha moved to drums in the second composition,
Kubuwang -- "ku" stands for kulit (leather), "bu" for bambu
(bamboo), "wang" for kerawang (bronze or gamelan).

Windha mixed leather drums, bamboo flutes and bronze gamelan
in this second composition, with drums dominating the action.

In this second piece, Windha combined the sounds of Islamic
drumming with Balinese Kecak (a type of Balinese dance). And the
sound of flutes again played an integral part in the piece.

Unlike Kecak, where human voices create the music, the sound
in Kubuwang was produced by the beating of small conga drums.

"I intentionally inserted an Islamic element into Kubuwang and
the combination is beautiful. Here, I want to emphasize that the
blending of differences, even in beliefs, is beautiful."

Not only did Windha insert Islamic music, he also borrowed the
style of the Javanese gamelan for his third and final composition
oor the evening, Santi Mantra (Peace Song).

Unlike his first and second compositions, the third, played
after a 15-minute break, was much more dynamic, with all types of
gamelan played. The dynamic style of the Balinese percussion was
very much in evidence here.

The two female singers, who were restricted to chanting in the
previous two compositions, now sang a Balinese song, which
according to Windha contained religious verses.

For the non-Balinese speaking audience, the song was
meaningless, but the atmosphere it created, with the choice of
soft Balinese melodies, created a feeling of contemplation.

The intention behind the Bamboo Symphony theme chosen by
Windha for the evening show was to help the audience achieve a
peaceful state of mind.

Windha, a lecturer at the Indonesian Arts Institute in
Denpasar, presented the three compositions at this year's Art
Summit with a specific mission: to promote peace.

"The situation in our country today gave me the inspiration to
create these soft compositions. By presenting these calm
compositions, I want to bring peace to my audience, I want to ask
our brothers to express themselves softly, not in violent ways."

It was Windha's first time participating in the three-yearly
Art Summit. Windha created the first two compositions especially
for this event, while the last was composed in 1998 when
Indonesia was mired in crisis.

Although loaded with messages, the musical pieces in Bamboo
Symphony maintained their beauty, attesting to Windha's
creativity.