New Jakarta Ensemble crosses cultures

New Jakarta Ensemble crosses cultures

By Emilie Sueur

JAKARTA (JP): Tony Prabowo seems to bristle when utterances of
"new music" are used to describe his music.

But there was no conventional categorization for his
compositions performed Tuesday by the New Jakarta Ensemble at the
Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) for the Pasar Tontonan Jakarta 1997.

All six pieces did not fall under the strict definitions of
either Western or traditional music.

The musical backgrounds of the ensemble's members reveal a
straddling of Western music and traditional works.

Tony Prabowo, born in Malang, East Java, in 1956, started
playing violin when he was eight. He soon realized that he had
found his life's vocation and quit school at an early age to
focus on Western traditional music studies.

The New Jakarta Ensemble was formed when choreographer Linda
Hoemar asked Tony to compose a percussion piece for her dance
performance Lalu? (So?).

Tony asked Epi Martison, a choreographer and percussionist
specializing in traditional music of West Sumatra, to join him.

Four other young traditional percussionists, Musliwardinal,
Armen Suwandi, Anusirwan and Desmal Hendri Caniago, also became
involved. All of them received formal training at the Academy of
Traditional Music in Padang.

The group performed for the first time during the Indonesian
Dance Festival in Jakarta last year.

In May this year, the group was invited to perform at the Sufi
Music Festival in London. Tony wanted to add vocals and asked
soprano Nyak Ina Raseuki to join.

Ethnomusicology

Nyak had worked with Tony on ornamentation exploration, the
focus of her research in ethnomusicology.

Her musical path symbolizes the spirit of the group. She
started studying Western classical music but soon turned to
traditional forms.

"Traditional music offers more alternatives and possibilities
to explore," she says.

Artist Teguh Ostenrik also plays an important part in the
performance. He organized all the choreographic aspects of the
show, and the musicians' bodies become musical instruments in
themselves.

Tony may not like the description, but the coming together of
the seven musicians has resulted in the creation of a new music,
born from the gathering of Western and Eastern traditional
elements.

Their music is the artistic outcome of the fusion of two
cultures and musical worlds.

Tony's knowledge of Western contemporary composers such as
Pierre Boulez and Arnold Schoenberg provides the Western
perspective.

But Tony says he is sensitive to traditional Indonesian music,
whose influence on his composition work "doesn't come from formal
studies but lies in the heart".

All ensemble members were involved in the creative process for
the pieces, throwing ideas back and forth among themselves.

The group relied on the oral tradition in retaining the
musical compositions, in contrast to how it is meticulously
recorded in written form in the West. "There has been no written
notation for the percussionists," Tony says.

Tony would describe a mood or timbre, and the musicians would
propose musical interpretations. This was only possible because
of the excellent memories and musical ear of members.

Vocals were the only part to be written, but Nyak was still
given leeway to make her improvisations.

"Western music is a world of composers, but the traditional
Eastern one is of players," Tony says.

First contact with this new music may be at once amazing and
disturbing. The sounds are intriguing, the vocal strains
unusual. But, the listener will find cultural points of reference
by opening up his soul.

Actually, the marks are there because of the diverse essence
of the music. The compositions come from the fusion of different
cultures. Rapid flamenco rhythms find their cultural soulmates in
Asian tunes.

The musicians play instruments from all over the world --
Indonesian gamelan, Chinese gongs, Arab guitars or Caribbean
steel drums.

There is something for everyone in the diverse musical forms.
The New Jakarta Ensemble takes the common denominators that link
people across their divergent cultural background.

Tony will next compose the music for an opera to be performed
by the New Julliard Ensemble in New York in December next year.

Poet Goenawan Mohamad, whose poem Di Pasar Loak (At a Flea
Market) inspired Tony in the composition of one of the pieces
performed at the TIM, will write the libretto.

Those ready to cross the cultural divides in music can catch a
the New Jakarta Ensemble next month at the Utan Kayu Theater.