Luluk Purwanto strings out a tune on the Stage Bus
Luluk Purwanto strings out a tune on the Stage Bus
By Emily Sueur
JAKARTA (JP): Luluk Purwanto tidies the colorful acoustic mess
around her on the side of the Stage Bus, her group's traveling
stage venue.
She owns up to an addiction: "I can't help collecting all
kinds of toys that make a sound."
Evidence is in plain sight. A Swiss cow bell stands next to a
small Javanese bell tree, with a green plastic dinosaur within
arm's reach. A few members of her large squeaking bric-a-brac,
each of which she manages to use at least once during a concert
with The Helsdingen Trio.
On stage, the group is one. All fuse in a stimulating jazz
alchemy of Australian Belinda Moody on base, Dutchmen Victor de
Boo on drums and Rene Van Helsdingen on piano, and Luluk plucking
and strumming away on violin.
It all came together again last week at Erasmus Huis in South
Jakarta, a stop on their Java-Bali Stage Bus tour lasting through
Sept. 15. Van Helsdingen, between assorted jokes, threw all his
energy into his keyboard. Moody served up great bass
improvisations. De Boo refused to spare his drums. And Luluk,
wandering off and on stage, did not miss a prime musical
opportunity.
Luluk and The Helsdingen Trio will perform in Bali from Aug.
30 to Sept. 3, in Malang, East Java, on Sept. 5, in Surabaya,
East Java, on Sept. 8, in Surakarta (Solo) on Sept. 9 and in
Yogyakarta on the following two days.
Luluk attributes her career to luck. She had musical strains
in her family -- parents Aysha Gani and Julian Purwanto were
opera singers and music teachers.
She was introduced to music at a young age, but this self-
confessed naughty girl would soon grow restless of each new
instrument.
The pattern seemed set to continue after she picked up the
violin at the age of nine in 1968. "As usual, I got tired of it
after two weeks of practice," she remembers.
But her parents had invested in an instrument and prodded her
to continue playing. Today, she still uses her childhood violin.
She came to love playing, a thankless task of hours of
practicing for her, and a stressful time for her family as they
endured her first scratchy attempts.
Her violin teachers developed her talent and love for music.
Her first teacher was Karnaji Kristanto, himself an accomplished
player.
Her second, Nicollay Varfolomeyef, lived in her home and
became like a grandfather to her.
This charismatic teacher, the first man to arrange the
Indonesian national anthem to a symphonic structure, taught more
than violin to Luluk. Due to his own visual impairment, he
accentuated the subtle nuances and emotions of music.
In 1972, Luluk, still only 13, was awarded an Australian
musical scholarship. Her parents rejected it, fearing she was too
young.
Two years later, the obstinate prodigy won it again, and this
time, for the sake of peace and quiet, her parents let her go.
She was the first Indonesian to enter Sydney Conservatory of
Music. Saddled with practicing eight hours a day, she knew "it
was not a game anymore".
Luluk also joined the Australian Youth Orchestra, persevering
after failing the first audition to pass the second. She was the
youngest member, just 16 among her peers aged 18 to 25 years old.
Another case of being in the right place at the right time:
she soon left on a three-month tour through the United States.
She also played in a jazz group outside of the conservatory.
News of her extracurricular playing reached the conservatory
director, who summoned her to his office.
"At first, I thought he would be angry, but I explained to him
my dedication to classical music," Luluk says. "And then he
confessed that he played in a jazz band when he was young."
She returned to Indonesia to study at a school in Padang, run
by her mother, continuing on to the Indonesian Art Institute in
Yogyakarta and the Jakarta Institute of Fine Arts.
By the 1980s, she was juggling performances in two bands
playing with the Ireng Maulana All Stars and a pop group called
Pretty Sisters.
Both proved worthwhile experiences in their own unique ways.
With Ireng, she traveled around Indonesia and played in The
Singapore Jazz Festival in 1983. The lone female in the band, she
was a curiosity in the paternalistic ambiance.
The female quartet was a different story. All the women had
to perform their professional best on stage "or quit", Luluk
says.
Her career took shape when she performed with the Bhaskara
band at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland in 1985.
"With this band," she says, "I realized what was required to
be professional jazz musician.
She realized that talent alone was not enough, and that she
would have to work to cultivate her music.
Udin Zach, the band's leader, died the same year and the group
gradually fell apart.
Luluk was looking for fellow musicians to play with her at the
Bombay Jazz Festival in 1986. She remembered van Helsdingen, who
she had met in Holland in 1984 and corresponded with regularly.
The two teamed up for the festival, and became a life
partnership with their marriage in 1987.
They are inseparable in their musical and personal lives, with
Luluk describing herself as "Rene's other half".
She is now focused on jazz over her classical roots. "I turned
to jazz music instead of classical music because jazz is more a
matter of exchange. Jazz is give and take."
The reciprocity is found in Indonesian audiences. "The
Indonesian public asks the musician to play at a hundred percent.
But in return, they offer their enthusiasm, their curiosity and
their openness of mind."
The couple is looking forward to opening a spot devoted to
jazz at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, the final stop after the Stage
Bus carried them through Europe, Australia and Indonesia over the
past three years.
As she packs her musical props away until the next
performance, Luluk says once again that her musical success is
due merely to good fortune. Her own natural modesty probably
prevents her acknowledging that none of it would have been
possible without her talent and determination.