Bringing classical music to the young

Bringing classical music to the young

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Sanur, Bali

For many centuries philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and
Friedrich Hegel ruminated on the value of art in our lives.

Many of their disciples still ponder the same question.

While the scholarly debate rages on -- with no definitive
answer to the question yet reached -- one woman in Jakarta has
already found one: She believes music as an art form can empower
people, especially callow youths, who might be at a loss about
their direction in life.

Over the past eight years, housewife and mother Yayuk Rahardjo
has used music, classical in particular, as a means by which
hundreds of young people can express themselves and do something
constructive rather than take drugs, skip school or engage in
other acts of delinquency.

An organization she helped found and now chairs, Indonesian
Youth Music (YMI), has recruited hundreds of talented young
people from cities like Yogyakarta, Medan, Surabaya and Jakarta
to form the National Youth Music Orchestra, an institution that
provides them with scores of master classes by respected
musicians, and has brought them to the spotlight by staging
concerts in some of the city's venerated cultural centers.

The orchestra has performed works by Beethoven, Bach, Schubert
Mozart and others.

For other less gifted young people, YMI has given them an
opportunity to engage in activities relating to music in which
they can explore the less glitzy side of performance art, such as
artist management, sound system management and promoting hard-to-
sell classical concerts.

Scores of programs are designed to educate young people
outside the organization about the merits of classical music, in
a kind of lecture concert.

To nurture a love of music from an early age, Yayuk has also
organized dance and music therapy for children between two and
four years old -- an endeavor she considers a success as some of
her students have become consummate musicians.

Almost every weekend, her office in Kebayoran Baru, South
Jakarta, teems with young people who immerse themselves in music
and other related activities.

These young people also had big hand in organizing the 60th
international congress of Jeunesses Musicales Internationale
(JMI), the mother organization of YMI, between Aug. 15 and Aug.
19.

Indonesia is the third country in Asia and Pacific to hold the
meet after Japan and South Korea. The programs were organized
despite their being almost nothing in YMI's coffers.

As a member of Belgium-based JMI, which bars its affiliates
from engaging in commercial activities to finance their
activities, YMI has had to rely on itself to keep its programs
running.

In a country where the government is still struggling to meet
the basic needs of its population, subsidization is YMI's last
priority, as a budget for cultural activities is indeed hard to
come by.

"What we have is only our creativity and labor. We have put
them to maximum use to gain resources that we need for running
our programs," Yayuk told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of
the JMI congress on Wednesday.

Ever since its establishment, YMI has depended solely on
sponsorship to support its programs.

Such a budget constraint has prompted YMI to rely on word of
mouth recommendation as its means of advertisement, even when it
stages a major classical concert.

YMI also promotes its programs via what it terms role models.
Members who have devoted most of their time to the organization
earn the praise of being role models for other members.

One of these is a former drug addict who is now in charge of a
great deal of YMI's activities. Another is a young graphic
designer who served as the YMI representative at the JMI meet.

"They are two of our most active volunteers, and devoted most
of their time to YMI; they were more than happy to be given such
a big responsibility," she said.

Yayuk's endeavor was born out of a firm belief that if
nurtured from an early stage, music could provide people with an
ethical foundation.

The mother of three has no interest in teaching music for
adults, whom she considers morally corrupt, beyond redemption.
What gave rise to such a conviction -- or disillusionment -- was
a bitter experience that she had while witnessing the demise of
her public relations company from the misdemeanors of
irresponsible clients, mostly large companies.

"In the wake of the economic crisis in the late 1990s, my
company could have remained intact if those companies had not
reneged on their pledges. They used the economic crisis as an
excuse to avoid meeting their obligations to us; I knew that
something was gravely wrong with how the businesses were run and
I believe that music could right that wrong," she said.

Having grown up in a musical family, her background merely
hardened Yayuk's resolve to resort to music to deal with the
callousness of life.

Her father was a professional musician who played saxophone in
a jazz band, and introduced jazz and classical music to her early
in life.

However, her father's occupation as a full-time artist limited
the opportunities for Yayuk and her seven siblings to live a
lavish life.

Yayuk's mother was a teacher who was very strict in setting a
musical standard for her children. She allowed them to listen
only to classical music and jazz in her home.

"But unlike my mother, I have let my children decide what type
of music they want to listen to -- whether rock, jazz or hip-hop,
as long as they know how to appreciate it," she said.