Esthetics a problem in RI contemporary music world

Esthetics a problem in RI contemporary music world

By Franki Raden

JAKARTA (JP): At the beginning of 1996 the city of Semarang,
Central Java, hosted a very attractive contemporary music event,
sponsored by Jamu Jago, a well-known traditional herbal medicine
manufacturer.

It was the first time the city had organized a festival of
contemporary music. The organizers invited Indonesian composers
Didi AGP (Jakarta), Rusdiyantoro and Soekamso (Solo), Haryo Yose
Suyoto (Yogyakarta) and Yusbar Djaelani (West Sumatra).

Semarang, in the 19th century and early part of the 20th
century, was one of the most active cities in organizing musical
events in this country. Musicians coming from Europe never
omitted Semarang when touring this country. In the middle of the
19th century, when the Dutch East Indies was immensely rich,
musical activities in Semarang were comparable to those in
international cities like New York. After Indonesia gained its
independence in 1945, inexplicably, musical activities in
Semarang dwindled drastically.

Semarang is fortunate to still have a composer active in
creating music and giving performances. He is Jaya Suprana, owner
of Jamu Jago. The May Semarang Music Forum, as the festival was
called, marked the reawakening of Semarang as a city of music.

We witnessed many contemporary music festivals in other cities
this year. In April, Jakarta hosted the important Jakarta Music
Forum and in July it organized the Jakarta Percussion Music
Festival 1996. Also in July, Yogyakarta held the Yogyakarta
Gamelan Festival. All three festivals were international events.
Participants in the Jakarta Music Forum, organized by the Jakarta
Arts Foundation, came from Russia (Ayuska Quartet), Switzerland
(Camerata Bern), Holland (David Little & Wim Koning), New Zealand
(Philip Dadson) and Australia (Sarah Hopkins). Indonesia was
represented by Ben Pasaribu (Medan), Marusya N. Abdullah, Didi
AGP and Jalu Pratidina (Jakarta), Djaduk Ferianto and Haryo Yose
Suyoto (Yogyakarta), Harry Roesli (Bandung) and Sunardi (Solo).
The works by Philip Dadson and Djaduk Ferianto attracted much
attention at the festival.

JakPerc 96, organized by Studio Merah Putih, presented
musicians from America (Music for Homemade Instruments), Holland
(Resonans Quartet), Australia (Ron Reeves Trio), Korea
(Samulnori) and Indonesia (Harry Roesli, Inisisri). With the
exception of Korea, the performances were extraordinary. JakPerc
96 was special because it was held in the open air arena of the
Jakarta Fairground and attended by thousands of spectators, a
rarity for any contemporary music event.

Yogyakarta

This year's Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival, organized by the
Yogyakarta Arts Council, involved many contemporary gamelan
groups and composers from America. Some hold important positions
in America's contemporary music world, such as Alvin Lucier and
Philip Corner. The Sons of Lion gamelan group, also from America,
was established in the 1970s. Barbara Benary and Daniel Goode
were among its prominent figures.

Apart from the Semarang Music Forum, another important local
festival was Pentas Jelajah, held in Bandung. This is a unique
festival that has taken place every month since September 1996.
The festival promises to become a creative arena for Indonesia's
progressive young musicians. Pentas Jelajah also has the
sponsorship of A Mild, which previously showed more of an
interest in commercial music.

For the past few years a number of private radio stations have
taken advantage of contemporary music as an alternative for music
lovers. Errol Jonathan of Suara Surabaya says he is certain that
there is a strong market for contemporary music. Sapto Raharjo of
Yogyakarta's Geronimo Radio, which airs similar programs, says
his audience numbers close to 5,000. Currently, with the aid of
the Ford Foundation, Sapto Raharjo broadcasts traditional and
contemporary music on various private radio stations in Surabaya,
Yogyakarta, Bandung, Jakarta and Medan.

Once considered hard to digest, contemporary music is proving
to be attractive commercially. Another indication is the many
commissions now given to composers such as Tony Prabowo (for the
Lontar Foundation), Yazeed Djamin (for the Jakarta International
Trade Center), Slamet A. Sjukur and Rahayu Supanggah (for the
Directorate General of Culture), Elfa Secoria (for Jakarta's
Culture Agency), Harry Roesli (for Ancol Dreamland), Djaduk
Ferianto (for Bentara Budaya), Trisutji Kamal (for the Gedung
Kesenian Jakarta and the Nuansa Klasik Ensemble), Paul Gutama
Soegijo (for CSIS) and myself (for SCTV and the Jakarta City
Tourism Agency).

These commissions do not yet include the works especially
created for contemporary music festivals like the Semarang Music
Forum, JakPerc 96 and Pentas Jelajah. On Nov. 30, works by
Trisutji Kamal were performed to raise money, along with other
works commissioned by choreographers, theater and film directors.

In Indonesia the staging of contemporary dance and theater,
mostly accompanied by original music compositions (played live),
constitutes a healthy challenge for composers to create and stage
their works. Sometimes in staging dances the composers are given
the opportunity to compose their works independently. One
attractive dance, composed by Cilai and Donny, was called
Species.

This year the composers most active in creating music for
dance and theater in Jakarta were Cilai, Tony Prabowo and Epi
Martison.

Lifestyle

Contemporary music is becoming part of the urban lifestyle in
Indonesia. Performances can now be seen in private houses, cafes,
pubs, art workshops, university auditoriums, recreation sites,
galleries, concert halls, art centers, foreign cultural centers,
public venues, convention centers and star-rated hotels.
Classical music groups in Indonesia often include in their
programs works by local composers such as Nuansa Klasik (Trisutji
Kamal), Trio Pivot (Trisutji Kamal), Aisha-Iravati Soediarso duo
pianists (Amir Pasaribu), Linny Sugianto-Iswargia Sudarno duo
pianists (Trisutji Kamal) and pianist Oerip S. Santoso (Amir
Pasaribu, Mochtar Embut, Jaya Suprana).

Another attractive phenomenon observed this year was the
emergence of a new generation of composers from Bandung, Jakarta
and Medan. In Bandung, in addition to DKSB led by Harry Roesli,
there are STSI and IKIP. The role of Pentas Jelajah is also very
important to encourage the regeneration process of Indonesia's
contemporary music composers. In Jakarta, the contemporary music
competition called Musikalisasi Puisi Remaja (The Musicalization
of Youth Poetry), organized by the Ministry of Education and
Culture for three consecutive years, has aided the regeneration
process.

In Medan, this role is fulfilled by the music department of
Nomensen University's school of arts, with Ben Pasaribu as the
leader. Nomensen University is currently the only university in
Indonesia which has a music department and a program for
composition.

In one year, Medan has produced a great number of composers.
Medan is also active in organizing contemporary arts festivals
and special concerts introducing the works of young composers. It
is interesting to note that apart from Ben Pasaribu and the young
composers referred to, Medan now has a senior composer who in the
1950s played a very important role in laying the foundation for
the development of contemporary Indonesian music. This composer
is none other than Amir Pasaribu, 81, who spent 30 years until
recently in Suriname.

Pasaribu was one of the composers who oriented Indonesia's
contemporary music culture toward the Western music world. In the
1950s Pasaribu left his mark by establishing a school for
classical music in Yogyakarta named SMIND (now the music
department of Yoyakarta's Indonesian Arts Institute). He was also
a very influential music critic in analyzing the then complicated
music problems of Indonesia.

If Medan has Amir Pasaribu, Yogyakarta has Ki Wasitodipuro,
87, a composer from Pasaribu's generation, who also just returned
from a 20-year stay in America. Ki Wasitodipuro, known as Pak
Tjokro, is one of the composers who oriented Indonesia's
contemporary music in the 1950s toward gamelan music.

Debate

At the time, Ki Wasitodipuro and Amir Pasaribu were at
opposite poles. They were engaged in hectic debates on the music
culture that should serve as the foundation for the development
of contemporary music. The homecoming of these senior composers
will benefit the local world of contemporary music.

Another Indonesian composer returned recently after a stay of
43 years in Berlin. Paul Gutama Soegijo was a former student at
Amir Pasaribu's SMIND at the time of the school's establishment
in Yogyakarta. Gutama brought home some interesting problems for
the music world after years of creating alternative music, called
New Source Music.

New Source Music was his music based on the culture of
traditional gamelan music, exactly like the one idealized by Ki
Wasitodipuro in the 1950s. What differentiates Gutama's position
from that of the Ki Wasitodipuro group is his background in
Western academic music.

Although Gutama uses an "internal" approach in his New Source
Music or "new gamelan music", he has succeeded in using Western
musical thinking to create fascinating new gamelan works. His
music is an ideal synthesis of gamelan music and Western
classical music, and could serve as a model for the development
of creativity in Indonesian contemporary music.

It is interesting if we look back 80 years ago when Indonesian
contemporary music was proclaimed by its pioneers Ki Hadjar
Dewantara, R.M. Soerjopoetro, Atmadarsana and R. Soehardjo. What
they did then bears a resemblance to what Gutama has done, the
difference being that their work was not as sophisticated. It
could be said that Gutama has solved the problem of the esthetics
of Indonesian contemporary music based on the culture of gamelan
music.

Esthetics

What remains is the problem of esthetics of Indonesian
contemporary music based on Western classical music as practiced
by the Amir Pasaribu group in the 1950s. The challenge is whether
the Indonesian composers who express themselves in a Western
music idiom can inject local characteristics into their works.

It is hoped that this problem will be responded to by the
works of the Indonesian composers who have been involved in
esthetic problems for years, including Trisutji Kamal, Jaya
Suprana, Yazeed Djamin, Sinta Wullur, Marusya N. Abdullah, Harry
Roesli, Ben Pasaribu, Sapto Rahardjo, Otto Sidharta, Tony Prabowo
and Amir Pasaribu himself, now 82 years old.