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.