Rachmaninoff piece included in classic concert's program

JAKARTA (JP): The curtain comes down on the one-month Art Summit Indonesia 1998 in the next few days, but this does not mean that the end of quality performances in the capital. The Nusantara Symphony Orchestra is preparing to entertain classical music lovers with two concerts next week.

The 60-member orchestra will be performing at Hotel Mulia Senayan on Jl. Asia Afrika and the Graha Bhakti Budaya stadium at the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in Central Jakarta, on Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 respectively.

Conducted by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's noted maestro Lim Yau, who is also the artistic consultant of the Nanyang University of Singapore and Singapore national art council advisor, the orchestra is directed by cofounder Yazeed Djamin.

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, a 45-minute piece considered the epitome of a concert pianist's career, will be among the five works to be played here.

"It is one of the most difficult pieces ever to be played in a concert pianist's life. I played it during my doctorate exams ... I hope I can do it again," Yazeed said.

"The older a person gets, the harder it becomes for one to play it," he added.

The rest of the program consists of Brahms' Tragic Overture, Debussy's Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Fawn, Yazeed's Nyiur Hijau (Green Coconut) and A. Borodin's Polovtsian Dance.

Yazeed, who formerly taught at Yogyakarta's Indonesian Institute of Arts (ISI) and was former music director to its orchestra, hopes the concert will raise awareness of classical music among Indonesian art buffs.

"A country as rigid as Malaysia has four symphony orchestras. Here in Jakarta itself, with its population of 12 million, we have only one," Yazeed said.

"There people pay more than 100 ringgit for a ticket... close to Rp 300,000 (US$34) and yet, tickets are always sold out."

However he added that the musicians in the Malaysian symphony orchestras, who were each paid as much as US$50,000 annually, were all imported.

"We can proudly say that all of our musicians are local. Sometimes I have to bring five or six of them to help with the Malaysian National Symphony Orchestra when I work there," the resident composer of the Malaysian National Symphony Orchestra said.

Having featured as a soloist in several world-renowned orchestras, Yazeed founded the orchestra, formerly known as the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra, with former minister of foreign affairs Mochtar Kusuma-Atmadja in 1988. The concert at the Graha Bhakti Budaya stadium of TIM will be held with the arena's ceiling closed to generate a better resonance of the music.

Tickets for the performance at the hotel cost Rp 60,000 for Friends Of The Nusantara Orchestra group (SON) members and Rp 70,000 for the public, while those for the one at TIM cost range from Rp 15,000 to Rp 40,000. (ylt)