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.