New Works, New Ideas, New Friends

Today's the last day of my longest stay in Indonesia to date. It's been quite a productive stay, I must say. .................................................................................................................................. Musically speaking, I finished my music for two films. The first is Hari Ini Pasti Menang (Today We Must Win), a film about the intrigues and dark side of the world of soccer in Indonesia. I have never liked soccer in my whole life, and living the last 14 years in Spain doesn't help either. But since I read the script and learned that this film is about the "dark" world which has always attracted me, be it in sports, arts or politics, I accepted to do the music enthusiastically. The most strange element in that movie, I guess, will be the theme song which the producer also asked me to write. It was supposed to be a nationalistic pop song with a "classy(cal)" touch to be played and sung by a pop group, but when the production team heard what I wrote, they insisted that I should play the piano, together with some strings, to accompany the high rising popstar, Judika. I already told them that if I play myself, it will sound very strange, but they insisted anyway. The end result, the song "Indonesiaku" (My Indonesia) will sound like something nobody has heard before. ........................................................................................................................................... This film will inevitably provoke controversy, especially after the death of Diego Mendieta, the Paraguayian player, due to the indifference of the National Football Federation, and the rotten (dis)organization and corruption in the world of sports in Indonesia. Legendary film stars Ray Sahetapy and Mathias Muchus take major roles, together with father and son Hengky and Verdi Sulaiman, Tika Putri etc. It will be released on April 11 this year throughout Indonesia. .......................................................................................................................................... The second film is Air Mata Terakhir Bunda (Mother's Last Drop of Tears). The story is a melancholic family drama and unlike the film I mentioned before, this is not a big-budget one, but it is the location which is very special here: Sidoarjo (East Java), a place hit by the "unique" disaster, drown by mud from the inside of the earth due to the human error by the Lapindo company. Now if you google "Lapindo mud" you will get what I mean. This second film is more "me", I must say. As I have confessed to a reporter more than once, I have this strange hormone that makes me feel lonely all the time (even in the midst of a crowd), and therefore provokes a sense of melancholy. You might like to read this: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/26/ananda-sukarlan-%E2%80%98i-write-my-best-music-when-i-feel-horribly-lonely%E2%80%99.html . In the Indonesian language a word was invented a few years ago for this feeling: GALAU. But long before the word existed, I was already born with that hormone in my body. Every time I write music, this "atmosphere" is what naturally comes out. If my music sounds happy, funny or anything else than melancholic, it is only thanks to my compositional technique of transforming the material into different characters. So, writing for the latter film didn't give me this extra "work" except for very few spots. I use my favorite instruments to evoke the melancholic feeling, such as the english horn and violas. The film is full of shining starry names of the most beautiful actors in Indonesia right now, such as Vino G. Bastian, Marsha Timothy, Happy Salma and Rizky Hanggono, and due to be released around June. .......................................................................................................................................... Many sketches of the music for those 2 films above will be included in Alicia's Third Piano Book, which will be published the end of this month January. In fact, since I play the piano for the soundtrack, many pieces appear just as they sound on the films. .......................................................................................................................................... But I am always more excited with future projects. And my next project is a kind of Mahlerian orchestral work with singers. The theme is about --what else-- broken heart, but this is the one which has been broken for 6 centuries. So, I am trying to inject and implant medieval, renaissance up to 21st century music. It is based on the still unpublished book "Erstwhile - A Communion of Time" by Rio Haminoto who happens to have studied at the same highschool with me. The story is unbelievably touching and it directly stabbed my heart. I am sure that when it gets published it would become a best-seller. The word Erstwhile itself I find so poetic: it means something like "once upon a time in the past". I am going to invite the winners of the National Vocal Competition "Tembang Puitik Ananda Sukarlan" organized by Amadeus Performing Arts 2 years ago to sing it. It will be for full orchestra, and I have planned it to be in 10 movements or big sections, some of them are connected. It's too early to talk more about this, since it will involve some multimedia too, but I'll keep you informed !