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.