Classical music for youth, and by youth

By Nicolas Colombant

JAKARTA (JP): Fun, Friendly and Professional is not the type of motto you would expect from an orchestra.

But these are the selling points for Indonesia's first youth orchestra, Yayasan Orkestra Remaja Indonesia, which will hold its inaugural performances on Tuesday and Wednesday at Yamaha's 250- seat auditorium in central Jakarta.

"We want to make classical music enjoyable and recognizable for our youth. We want to give our talented youth opportunities to shine. We want to educate and at the same time show the public what Indonesian classical music is all about," explained Yayuk J. Rahardjo, the project coordinator of the privately run Indonesian Youth Orchestra.

Rahardjo attended recently an international orchestra summit in Tokyo, where she delighted a crowd of luminaries with a 10- minute speech on the value of promoting the orchestra at the school level.

The Indonesian classical community is essentially made up of insiders: musicians who studied abroad and students who are pursuing degrees in fine arts. Interested aficionados are few and far in between.

Awareness of classical music in this country began in the late 1980s, with the establishment of a network of private schools and university faculties specializing in classical training, and the creation of the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra in 1988. Parents in the higher-income brackets have started pushing their children to take piano, violin or singing lessons at an early age.

In Jakarta, an estimated 50,000 students are currently learning their way through the maze of notes left behind by the likes of Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. The radio venture Top FM has taken classical music to the airwaves on Radio Klasik.

"What is missing to develop the classical culture at its roots is the showmanship aspect of classical music," said Rahardjo.

"We need to show our youth a model of excellence to which they can aspire."

The inaugural performances will be preceded by two days of rehearsals open to public schools. Much to the surprise and delight of the organizers, rehearsals are turning out to be a bigger event than the concert itself.

So many school principals have reserved seats for the occasion that a 30-minute time slot will be allocated for each bus load of children, many of whom will be discovering classical music for the first time.

The concert's two-hour program is listener-friendly, to coax the ear of the unfamiliar audience. The orchestra's management actually had classical music market-tested to find which composers please the Indonesian public.

Not surprisingly, Ludwig van Beethoven came out on top.

Fittingly, the orchestra's 63 members, aged 12 to 25, will open with the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C Minor.

Since this is their first performance, the young musicians will be accompanied by tutors. Violins, violas, cellos, flutes, trumpets, oboes, French horns, tubas and harps will be represented.

In the second part, conductor Yazeed Djamin will explain the value of each instrument as Meditation by J. Massenet and Promenade by M.P. Mussorgsky are played. With a twitch of his baton, Djamin will interrupt the performance to lecture the audience on the making of an orchestra.

The youth orchestra is Djamin's pet project and he hopes to get his point across. An established musician, he has grown increasingly frustrated at the lack of recognition Indonesian musicians receive abroad.

Djamin, whose compositions have been presented by the Boston Pops Orchestra, is often wrongly referred to as a Malaysian. He is, in fact, a proud Indonesian who has made it his personal mission to put Indonesia on the map of classical music.

Djamin will encourage the youth orchestra to play Indonesian compositions, such as the fourth piece on the program, Nyiur Hijau Variations.

Currently known as the theme tune for private television station RCTI, it has been rearranged by Djamin to fit the classical form. An idea shared by Djamin and Rahardjo is that the youth orchestra will have to branch out if it is to encourage the development of classical culture.

Reflecting this openness, the orchestra will conclude its performance with a jazzy rendition of the traditional folk song Suwe Ora Jamu. The first night, Nov. 25, is for VIPs, invitation only.

Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave, former foreign minister Mochtar Kusuma-Atmadja, delegates from the Ministry of Education and Culture, business leaders, journalists and school principals are expected to attend.

Rahardjo is hoping that by turning the projectors onto the orchestra, she will be able to attract sponsors and clients.

It is not an infrequent occurrence to have a classical concert in Jakarta interrupted by the ring of a mobile phone or pager. To solve the problem, the master of ceremony will read from a code of conduct list, asking guests to remain silent in their seats, to refrain from taking pictures, eating, drinking or smoking, and to please, turn mobile phones and beepers off.

Despite the challenge of having to teach new ethics to the audience, Rahardjo is a firm believer in the project. Her own three children are learning the piano and violin.

Djamin, she said, is a passionate man who does things to fruition and so will she, as together, they will try to instill classical music into the national cultural fabric.

It is a journey only just beginning.

After the holiday season, she plans to take the young musicians and their instruments on a road show of public schools to develop partnerships and find new members. Thirty-four of the current crop are students from the Sekolah Menengah Musik, a specialized music high school in Yogyakarta.

The youth orchestra has entered into a partnership with the school under the auspices of the education ministry's link-and- match program.

Future plans include opening a summer school in Yogyakarta and operating a conservatory in Jakarta. The grand inauguration of the orchestra will take place in April next year, featuring Djamin's own Nyi Ronggeng composition, accompanied by Betawi dancers.

Rahardjo, who is a former dancer, believes it is possible to match the strength of traditional Indonesian dances with the rise of classical music to create something new and exciting. She is hoping the musicians and their parents will share the excitement.

Tickets for the second night of youth orchestra's debut are still available. Contact 7902980 for tickets.