Continuing with Trisutji Kamal's music

My newest CD, "Islamic Inspirations" is a continuation of my first 2 CDs of piano music by Trisutji Kamal, one of the pioneers in Indonesian classical music. Those 2 CDs were released almost 10 years ago! I hope we can release the complete CDs of all her piano music before she turns 80 next year, in 5 CDs in total. This is certainly the most ambitious project in Indonesian literature music up to date : recording ALL the piano solo works by Indonesia's most prolific, most important and groundbreaking composer who will celebrate her 80th birthday. I use that string of superlatives for many reasons : ............................................................................................................................................. 1. If one should define what is Indonesian literature music, then Trisutji's music definitely fits the definition. Yes, there were and are other composers such as Mochtar Embut (who, if hadn't been cut short by his premature death, would have produced a huge quantity of high quality works as well), Amir Pasaribu or even me, but Trisutji's music spans more than 50 years of creative process in searching its identity, not only for its individual character, but also the "indonesianness" of it. ............................................................................................................................................. 2. Trisutji's works (especially for piano solo) have been established as part of the repertoire of Indonesia's pianists : students, teachers, performers. I don't know any Indonesian pianist of my generation who has not played or learned her works. ............................................................................................................................................. 3. Although living in Europe in the 50s and 60s, Trisutji allowed herself not to be dictated by the "avantgarde" dictatorship which , though powerful until as late as the 80s, proved never to be accepted by anyone oustide its small circle and therefore disappeared together with, or even before the death of its "composers" . Therefore her music remains truthful to her expressions without being afraid of being critized by her colleagues. ............................................................................................................................................. 4. As a composer born and brought up with a rich culture of her country, she could assimilate all that she naturally absorbed and integrate it to her highly original musical language, applying a "Western" compositional technique and musical structures. This is, in a way, paralel to the artistic achievements of Toru Takemitsu as a Japanese, Aaron Copland as an American or Peter Sculthorpe as an Australian, being pioneers of establishing the identity of (classical) music of their own country. ............................................................................................................................................. This collection is a result of many years of hardwork and collaboration between the composer and myself. Many of her work remain unpublished, and even the published ones have many errors in its printing. To make things worse, the composer is an incurable perfectionist who keeps on revising and changing notes, harmonies, phrases .... as the great Paul Valery admitted , "A poem is never finished, only abandoned". Therefore, recording her works forces her to "abandon" her masterpieces and present them in their final form . Every note, every nuance and even every silence of this recording has been discussed and carefully re-thought, although some of them have survived the test of time as they were written as early as in 1951 when the composer was only 15. ............................................................................................................................................. Composers like me and others of the next generation owe a lot from Trisutji ; we are just continuing what she has begun. We just enter the door which she has opened. We just affirm what she has convinced us, that Indonesia does have its own identity in literature and classical music.