Love Songs and Lullabies

Words are powerful, yet they often stumble when demanded to carry the weight of love. We say “I love you” a thousand times, and while the phrase remains true, it can begin to feel strangely small against the enormity of the emotion it attempts to describe. Love is too vast, too contradictory, too physical and too ethereal to be contained within syntax alone. This is where music steps in — not as a substitute, but as an amplification, a language that bypasses the mind’s careful editing and speaks directly to the heart. Consider how a single note can feel like longing made audible. No sentence could ever convey that precise sensation with such immediacy.

Words describe; music embodies.The power lies partly in music’s ability to exist beyond explanation. When Johann Sebastian Bach writes a rising suspension in the “Air” from his Orchestral Suite No. 3, we feel reverence and tenderness without ever being told what to feel. When Billie Holiday bends a note in “Body and Soul” until it aches, the pain of unrequited love arrives before any lyric has time to explain it. The body understands first, the heart is slow to learn, the mind catches up later, if at all. Perhaps the deepest proof of music’s superiority lies in its universality and vulnerability. Lovers who share no common spoken language can still cry together listening to the same piece of music. A mother can sing a wordless lullaby to her child and convey more safety and devotion than any carefully crafted sentence ever could. Even when lyrics are present, it is rarely the literal meaning that breaks us open — it is the way the melody cradles the words, stretches them, fractures them, or lets them float away into silence. In the end, words remain essential; they offer clarity, promise, apology, commitment. But when love grows too large for language — when it is unbearable joy, quiet devastation, or the overwhelming need to simply be near someone — music waits like an old friend who needs no introduction. It takes our trembling, imperfect feelings and for a few perfect minutes turns them into something transcendent.And in that shared, wordless moment, two people understand each other more deeply than any declaration could ever achieve.That is why, after every important “I love you,” the wisest lovers do not speak again. They simply press "play". ...................................................................................................................... Through hundreds of love songs, mostly in artsongs or using the widely accepted term in Indonesian "tembang puitik", and for any instruments, I not only celebrate love, but also invite the players and listeners to experience love in its entirety—with all the beauty and pain that comes with it. Music speak about love in a way that is so personal and timeless. Writing love songs was my way of “loving again” the people, including those who might not love me. I don't really fancy the “shallow” or “commercial” love of some pop songs, and instead I want to show that true love is bold, radical, and sometimes even toxic because it can change a person completely. ....................................................................................................................... This is my new published scores of Love Songs and Lullabies, written throughout my life. As an introduction, I would like to quote the transcript of the interview I did with the pianist Dr. Karen Yong who teaches at Albany State University. This was done for her Doctoral thesis many years ago, and also a material she presented at The Piano Conference: National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP) 2025 in Chicago. ........................................................................................................................ Yong: I notice that there is a collection of seven love songs in Alicia's Third, Fifth, and Sixth Piano Books. What was the inspiration behind the collection? There are 7 of them in the collection. Sukarlan: Oh, yes. They were written [a long time] before, in fact. Because many of the pieces, especially in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth were written even when I was young. There were manuscripts in my cupboard. I had a cupboard with, I think, hundreds of manuscripts. And sometimes I just checked them over, and I thought, hey, this is interesting to make [it into] a real piano piece. And I wrote love songs because, well, for my girlfriends. Some of them are like birthday presents for people. Well, people I love but not girlfriends. Just friends. So yeah, some of them are old, some of them are new. I think the new ones start from number eight. Yong: Number eight? I think there are only a total of seven love songs in Alicia’s Piano Books. Sukarlan: Yes, seven in Alicia's Piano Books. Then, I published a new book called Shorter Works for Piano, because they don't have pedagogical purposes. They were not written for Alicia. They were just short pieces. If I had to write something, a prelude for my opera and another thing, so that's it. Yes. So that's why I didn't write more Alicia's Piano Book, but I wrote a collection of short pieces. And that's starting from “Love Song No. 8.” Yong: That makes sense. So, did you have any specific purpose for compiling seven love songs in three different volumes? Why didn't you compile in one? Sukarlan: Because I found one old love song one day and another love song a few months later. And sometimes, I took one paper and I thought, oh, did I write this? And if I thought this is very bad, then I said, okay, I'm definitely throwing this away. But if it's rather good, then I'd revise it. And if it's quite good, I’d just print it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, you see that Karen, back in 2020 had already suggested that I compile them into one book, and here it is. As for the lullabies, usually I write them for newborn babies of my dear friends, mostly piano teachers so they can play it for their babies. Jennise and Orlando are the babies (not anymore now) of Nitya Primantari. Athena Seraphine is the daughter of the late Brigifine E. Syams. Usually I just use the letters of their names as motif of the piece, except the ones for Mili or his sister Jessy where I just wrote what sounded in my head. Except the last one, for Rachel Nadia although one might say that she is a big, cute & admirable baby, and she's a pianist too. This lullaby was written the moment I learned she lay in a hospital bed, having a small accident that had shaken me more than her (now she's totally recovered). Anyway, the pattern is the same with my other lullabies, using the name of the babies as the main motif. The only difference is that usually my lullabies are sweet, carefree and made to lull the babies (and listeners) to sleep. This one, though still has the rhythmic element of a lullaby, has a certain melancholy to it, perhaps reflecting my worries for her accident (I still didn't know how serious it was when I wrote this, since she still hadn't answered messages on her phone). I was playing it at Rachel's place weeks later on her own piano, so she could hear the "authentic" (whatever it means) interpretation of the piece. But she made a video of it already while I was practising it after having totally forgotten about how it sounded (in fact, I even haven't checked it on the piano so that was the first time I heard it), so nonetheless there are very slight misaccuracies. You can find it on youtube. Anyway, one can hear the authentic, imperfect prayer I had sent into the dark for her, and that was enough. As my previous Love Songs, they were written in flashes of inspiration, usually inspired by dear friends but also they serve as sketches and melodic materials for future bigger works. Love Song no. 8 became the overture for my monologue "Tanah Air", commissioned by KOMPAS based on the monologue of the same title by Martin Aleida that won Kompas' Best Short Story of the year 2017. I wrote the theme of Love Song no. 9 back in the beginning of 2010s, and it was then used for the slow section of my First Chamber Symphony commissioned by the late ex President of the Republic of Indonesia, BJ Habibie. I then made something new for the middle section when I decided to use this theme as the 9th Love Song. So, in a way the process is reversed; although I wrote the first theme first, the Love Song came later. Love Song no. 12 is a birthday present for a dear friend / pianist Angelica Liviana, and ehm ... at the moment it's still not developed into a bigger piece of music.

More introductions to my music during the pandemic, 2021

Foreword to Rapsodia Nusantara 34 & 35 and other pieces ............................................................................................................ All of the works in this book was written during the Covid-19 pandemic, and two of them are closely related to the impact of the virus itself. ............................................................................................................. Organum was written during my stay in Labuan Bajo, after the passing away this year (2021) of Brigifine E. Syams, a piano teacher and close friend of mine, born and living in Surabaya. She passed away in July in hospital, and this music uses the method of Organum (in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages). The melody itself uses her name B-R(e)-I-G-I-F-I-N-E as the motif and it develops as a kind of passacaglia. ................................................................................... Variations on Ibu Soed's "Pergi Belajar" is in fact written for myself after I was released from hospital. I hadn't played the piano for at least 1 month, I had some kind of brain fog and I was (and still am at this moment writing this) recovering from Long Covid. My stamina was so down, not only physically but also mentally, and I begin to think that I should start writing piano works that is not so mentally and physically demanding, not only for now but for my old(er) years. This is one of them. In fact, I even premiered it in its shorter version, but afterwards I was inspired to write more variations, and so I made this into 2 versions: the shorter one that ends at bar 74 , and the longer one where one should go to bar 71 from bar 75. ........................................................................................................................ I then donated "Pergi Belajar" together with Rapsodia Nusantara no. 35 to Habitat Foundation, to be auctioned for their fundraising event to help victims of the Seroja Typhoon in East Nusa Tenggara. "Pergi Belajar" then was bought by Edwin Soeryadjaya, to be dedicated "to my lovely wife Julie H. Soeryadjaya", while Rapsodia Nusantara no. 35 becomes the gift "From MedcoEnergi to the People of Naibonat Village, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara". ................................................................................. I was still in my covid recovery period and didn't feel so secure in performing Rapsodia 35 at that event, so I asked one of the winners of the Ananda Sukarlan Award 2020, Michael Abimanyu Kaeng to perform it. He already played it for the Kayserburg International Youth Piano Competition that made him the winner of the Asian Region a few months before. I had written a Rapsy based on folkmelodies from East Nusa Tenggara, which was Rapsodia 11. Now that I have covered all the provinces of Indonesia (except Bengkulu from which I haven't found an original folksong) I am focusing on some specific regions or islands and make new Rapsies from them. Hence Rapsy 35 is entirely based on 2 folk-melodies from the island of Rote, which happens to be the most southern island of Indonesia, very close to Australia. Rapsy 35 was also played in the video "Matahari Terbenam di Timur" (The sun sets in the east) produced by the Ministry of Education and Culture on their YouTube channel "Budaya Saya". In that video, Gabriella Prisca Handoko performed that AND Rapsodia Nusantara no. 11. .................................................................................... Apart from these 3 piano works, Rapsodia Nusantara no. 34 and "I Wish Matilda had Waltzed to Minang" was written earlier during the pandemic. I wanted to write a series of "I Wish" pieces, where I intertwine a popular international melody with one from Indonesia, like I did with "I Wish Pavarotti Had Known Marzuki". So, "Matilda" was a "marriage" between "Waltzing Matilda" and the Minang folksong "Kampuang Nun Jauh di Mato". ........................................................................................... Rapsodia Nusantara no. 34 is quite particular because it intertwined two folksongs from two different provinces, although both still are in the island of Kalimantan. I only did this once, in my Rapsy 2, where both folksongs are children folktunes: one from Central Java (Cublak cublak suweng but a bit different melodic contour from the one today: I used the one I heard from the memories of my childhood) and one from West Java (Tokecang). Rapsy 34 used the folksong Tumpi Wayu (Central Kalimantan) and Cik-cik Periuk (West Kalimantan). I mix them both for they have a common motif made of the interval thirds. .................................................................................................. Ananda Sukarlan, November 2021, IG & twitter @anandasukarlan

Flashback to January 2021 : The preface to my music written in 2020, published in Jan. 2021

Have you all barely left the house in these last 9 months? Now you just realize, how much needed are art and artists right? How many works of music, films, literary works (even if they are as short as poems or short stories) or visual arts have you enjoyed while you couldn't leave your house? ...................................................................................................... There is one significant thing resulting from the quarantine of the Covid-19. The number of artistic productions of professional artists has increased sharply, but their communicative power to the "live" public has decreased significantly due to the closure of concert halls and theaters, cinemas, galleries and other public places. And this is dangerous, especially in a time when we are flooded (to be precise: allow ourselves to be flooded) by all forms of online entertainment and information. This can turn us into a passive and ignorant society, by allowing our brains to just accept (not mentioning that the current forms of entertainment and "art" are (very) easy to digest) and be unproductive, let alone creative. Besides, the term "social distancing" in my opinion is a big mistake, because it triggers us to be asocial. The reality is that we are "physical distancing", and we have to fight against anything that is "socially distant". ............................................................................................. Productivity and the new perspectives in creative products have been proven throughout history that creativity cannot be suppressed and silenced. The more limited space the artist is confined, the more his creativity will burn. In 1593 when the theater in London was closed by the plague, William Shakespeare was unable to perform so he wrote "Venus and Adonis," a beautiful narrative poem on love and nature. When the theater closed again in 1606, the poet busied himself locked at home writing "King Lear," "Macbeth," and "Antony and Cleopatra," according to Shakespearean James Shapiro. Indonesia's greatest writer, nominated for the Nobel Prize and recipient of the Magsaysay Award, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, wrote his major works during his exile during the Suharto dictatorship on the island of Buru. Oscar Wilde's greatest work "De Profundis" and French composer Olivier Messiaen's 50-minute "Quartet for the End of Time" were written while they were in prison. I myself, who wrote 26 numbers of Rapsodia Nusantara for 12 years, produced 5 numbers of Rapsodia Nusantara (no. 27-31) in 20 days in April during this Covid 19 quarantine period! In the world of science, not many might remember that Isaac Newton discovered the theory of gravity from the apple that fell from the tree during the bubonic plague that hit London in 1655. If quarantine did not close Cambridge University - sending student Isaac Newton to his village, perhaps the discovery of the theory wouldn't be that fast. .............................................................................................................. Now, in January 2021, I have finished 35 numbers of Rapsodia Nusantara and more piano works than ever, about 80 vocal works for my projects with the Ministry of Education and Culture for their "Rapsodia Nusantara" video series on YouTube, and several chamber works. This is certainly the most productive period, artistically, in my whole life, apart from my student days. Since the Ananda Sukarlan Award had to be done online, we were fortunate to have Calvin Abdiel (from a North Sumatran family) participated from Sydney where he is now currently studying at the Sydney Conservatory of Music, and at last won the 2020 prize. I then wrote a new Rapsodia dedicated to him, based on "Sigulempong" from North Sumatra, although I have written a Rapsodia from that region (number 14, based on the song "Rambadia") and numbered it no. 31 so that it could be published now (chronologically speaking it should be no. 34) . ............................................................................................................ Ananda Sukarlan, January 2021

Introduction to my "Happy Birthday Remix" and other piano pieces in the book

"Happy Birthday Remix" is a set of variations or merely twists from pop songs that was extracted, inspired or derived from melodies or motifs in classical music. To make life more complicated, I add the "Happy Birthday" tune to them, and dedicate them to my friends according to the occasion or zodiac. It's a spontaneous project started during the lockdown era of Covid-19, April 2020. Yes, I do quote from the pop song, but the pop song writer quoted from the classical melody, so who should pay royalty to whom, here? These were written in April - May 2020, during the lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. They wouldn't have been composed if I haven't had so much spare time! The way I copy and paste those pieces of music was in fact inspired by how the final scene of the movie "Rocketman" was made, when "Elton" sang "I'm Still Standing" using the original video clip. It was that visual technique which I applied in a musical way. ........................................................................................... Eric Carmen used Rachmaninov's tune from the 2nd movement of his Piano Concerto no. 2 as the base of his song, "All By Myself", later made hugely popular by Celine Dion. Released in 1975, it was before the Russian composer's 70th anniversary of death, so Carmen was contacted by the Rachmaninov estate and informed that it was still protected under royalty. An agreement was reached in which the estate would receive 12 percent of the royalties from "All by Myself". Carmen just speeded up the tempo of the original Rachmaninov melody, and put his words on it. What I did is I slowed it down, but not as much as the original tune, and mixed the chorus (which I think is original by Carmen) and the Happy Birthday tune, so listening to this, one gets confused which tune is which. That Rachmaninov’s music would be the source of a pop song hit should come as no surprise. If one of the requisites—at least in the 1970s— of creating a Top 40 hit is having a first-rate tune, then Rachmaninov might actually be the best place for a songwriter to start! . ...................................................................................................... "Memories ... Of Pachelbel" uses the melody from "Memories" of Maroon 5. Adam Levine basically ripped off the main melody of Pachelbel's Canon in D, added lyrics about wistfully recalling memories and missing people from your former life, and created an instant hit (and instant tear-jerker). The vocal melodies use the exact melodic and rhythmic motifs of Pachelbel's, not just the chord progression. I then intertwined the Happy Birthday tune, still using the rhythmic accompaniment of Maroon 5 (the only original thing of Maroon 5 that I used). .............................................................................................. The classic opening theme song of "Inspector Gadget" cartoon series came from Shuki Levy, an American composer famous in children’s television. Levy based his Inspector Gadget song on In the Hall of Mountain King, by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. ..................................................................................................... Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Singer based their song “Groovy Kind of Love” on the opening of the final movement of Clementi’s Sonatina in G minor, Op. 36, No. 5. “Groovy Kind of Love”. It was recorded early on by multiple groups including Diane and Annita (1965) and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles (1966) and then became a big hit with Phil Collins. Basically Wine & Singer just took the first few bars of Clementi and slow it down and make it "groovy". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Seikilos epitaph could date as far back as 200 B.C. It is the world’s oldest surviving piece of musical composition that has been found in its entirety. And because this piece exists in its entirety, scholars have not only been able to translate the lyrics but have also been able to convert the piece into modern musical notation that can be played today. Researchers have few clues about the creation of the Seikilos epitaph. What they do know is that the inscription on the stele may translate as “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Historians believe the composer, a man named Seikilos, wrote the song for a woman named Euterpe, presumably his deceased wife, and placed it on this tombstone for her. However, another possible interpretation of the text could be “Seikilos, son of Euterpe [or Euterpos],” so it is possible the song was actually dedicated to his mother. “As long as you live, shine, / Let nothing grieve you beyond measure. / For your life is short, / and time will claim its toll.” / .................................................................................................... In addition to the lyrics, another piece of the puzzle is the inscription engraved on the stele that reads, “I am a tombstone, an image. Seikilos placed me here as an everlasting sign of deathless remembrance.” There is thus no doubt that the composition is a type of mourning song, engraved on a loved one’s tombstone as a reminder of the fleeting nature of life. Much of the rest when it comes to the Seikilos epitaph, however, remains unclear. ................................................................................ The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone (a stele) from the Hellenistic town Tralles near present-day Aydın, Turkey, not far from Ephesus. It is a Hellenistic Ionic song in either the Phrygian octave species or Iastian tonos. While older music with notation exists (for example the Hurrian songs), all of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though short, composition. I therefore can analyze and delve deeply into it in order to make a set of variations on the original theme. Ananda Sukarlan, July 2021 IG & twitter @anandasukarlan

A Few Words Without Music, from the artistic director

My dear fellow musicians, Welcome to the G20 Orchestra, and for my non-Indonesian colleagues, welcome to our beautiful country! If you are here where you are today, it means not only that your musicianship and professionalism are highly valued, but also your willingness to embrace other cultures, to work together, to accept, tolerate and cherish differences and to communicate through means higher than just words and languages. We don't build orchestras. We build people, build their character, empathy, artistic & aesthetic values, discipline and hard work, sense of brother & sisterhood, capabilities of bridging even uniting differences. Only then the orchestra can be formed. .................................................................................................................................................. When the G20 Indonesia and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research & Technology officially asked me to build this orchestra early this year, I told them that I don't want to build just another orchestra, not even for a 4.0 era. I want a 5.0 orchestra, a group of people with a higher conscience, deeper understanding of moral and rational goodness in humans that perfectly integrate with technology (for the arts, especially social media and its algorithms). That is why I insisted in gender equality and the age restriction for the members of the orchestra. I would like to quote the statement by Elon Musk at "Insider", CNBC. It is perhaps politically incorrect, but hey since I'm such an unpolitical person, I will quote it anyway : .................................................................................................................................................. “I don't think we should try to have people live for a really long time. It would cause asphyxiation of society because the truth is, most people don't change their mind. They just die. So if they don't die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn't advance.” .................................................................................................................................................. The G20 Orchestra is literally a millenial orchestra and I hope it would change how the world perceives classical music, which basically hasn't changed in more than 100 years. Even the word "conservatory" for a music faculty is, for me, unfitting since it implies the unwillingness for change and development. In G20 Orchestra women and men have the same power, but not different generations. It is the millenials that hold the most power here: the power to express and the power to tell the older generations about history and how we should advance or (not) repeat it, through a medium which is the most powerful of all: music. Let us show that music is not just nice melodies, rhythms and harmonies, but a vehicle more powerful than words to tell stories and our deepest feelings. .................................................................................................................................................. Musically yours, .................................................................................................................................................. Ananda Sukarlan .................................................................................................................................................. Artistic Director of G20 Orchestra .................................................................................................................................................. twitter & instagram @anandasukarlan

Post scriptum tentang NFT Piano Competition

Akhirnya, Indonesia bisa meng-claim sebagai negara pertama yang membuat kompetisi piano untuk NFT. Sebelum ini, saya memang ternyata adalah musikus klasik Asia pertama yang meng-NFT-kan musik saya, itu sebabnya saya ingin bagikan "reputasi" ini ke 25 pianis di negeri ini yang akhirnya memenangkan kompetisi ini. Tentu saja untuk bisa membuatnya "Non Fungible" dan unik, kita harus membuat karya baru yang belum pernah ada, sehingga saya membuat Variasi dari Do-mi-sol, 3 not paling basic dari tangganada apapun di planet ini. Untuk lengkapnya, baca aja deh https://www.froyonion.com/news/viral/ananda-sukarlan-gelar-kompetisi-piano-nft-pertama-di-dunia . Saya memang sengaja tidak membocorkan cerita-cerita dan latar belakang dari tiap variasi, karena saya berharap tiap pianis bisa menginterpretasi sendiri apa yang ingin "diceritakan" di tiap variation yang semua memiliki latar belakang programatis, kejadian nyata (yang tentu kadang-kadang di dramatisasi untuk keperluan artistik). Anyway, banyak judul dari variations itu bisa di-google, misalnya Organum, Dies Irae dll. Ada beberapa hal yang "tidak terduga" sebelumnya; yahhh, namanya juga pertama kali, pasti ada surprises dong. ........................................................................................................................................ Misalnya, ada dua pianis yang terpilih memainkan "Organum" karena tiap pianis sebetulnya menonjolkan karakternya. Padahal Organum memiliki expressive range yang besar, dari kelembutan sampai kemarahan / agresivitas. Sensivitas dan kelembutan itu ditonjolkan oleh Lavinia Lee, sayangnya dia tidak bisa mengekspresikan agresivitas dan elemen ritmis yang kuat di bagian akhir dan polifoni karya ini. Nah, elemen ritmis ini sangat baik dimainkan oleh Michael Abimanyu Kaeng, yang masih kurang mengeksplorasi elemen "rubato" di bagian awal dan tengah. Rhythmic sense yang kuat dalam dirinya bisa menjadi bumerang dalam memainkan karya-karya romantik yang membutuhkan kebebasan menarik-ulur tempo dan ritme. Memang sih Michael tidak perlu memilih karya-karya romantis, atau Lavinia tidak perlu memainkan karya polifonik seperti Bach, Hindemith atau Shostakovich dalam karirnya kalau memang itu bukan "forte"nya, tapi aspek ini mereka harus lebih kenali dan kembangkan, karena setiap komponis yang telah menyerap musik dari Bach sampai Philip Glass (dan melalui teknik komposisi Beethoven dan Brahms) seperti saya pasti menggunakan berbagai macam elemen dan aspek walaupun cuma "nyerempet". ........................................................................................................................................ Satu pelajaran yang bisa diambil para pianis yang mengikuti kompetisi adalah untuk jangan mengambil karya yang (akan) menjadi terlalu nge-hitz. "Mother's Love" dimainkan oleh puluhan pianis, dan itu menjadikan opsi menangnya mereka menjadi lebih kecil. Mother's Love itu cukup mudah secara teknis, melodinya catchy, dan mungkin juga para emak-emak yang mendorong anak mereka untuk memainkannya karena ehhhmmm .... ya judulnya aja Mother's Love. ........................................................................................................................................ Kalau mau mengkritik diri saya sendiri, ya sebetulnya kompetisi ini kami adakan agak terlalu buru-buru. Intinya memang mau mencetak sejarah sebagai kompetisi piano untuk di-NFT-kan, sebelum keduluan orang / institusi lain terutama di negara-negara yang lebih maju. Sebagai yang pertama, semoga ini memberi kami pelajaran justru dari berbagai kekurangan yang kami telah lakukan. Kedepannya, saya berencana untuk membuat Ananda Sukarlan Award 2022 ini untuk NFT, dengan persiapan (baik oleh pihak penyelenggara maupun pihak peserta) yang lebih baik dan matang, itu sebabnya kami ingin undur penyelenggaraannya sampai paling tidak bulan Agustus mendatang. ........................................................................................................................................ Meng-NFT-kan permainan 25 pianis ini akan makan waktu beberapa minggu, terutama karena NFT itu terdiri dari partitur, rekaman dan tulisan tentang latarbelakang variasi tersebut. Saya juga bangga banget dengan Metaroid , platform marketplace karya anak bangsa 100% yang menggunakan format 1155 yang sangat mengakomodasi segala bentuk musik, karena seperti kita ketahui, NFT selalu identik dengan hal yang visual. Satu hal lagi yang membuat Indonesia menjadi pionir dalam dunia digital.

Pengalaman Bertemu Hantu pertama kali

Saya ini penggemar film horror, walaupun tidak pernah mengkoneksikannya dengan dunia nyata. Buat saya, hantu, dracula, vampires dll itu hanya di dunia fiksi, baik performing arts, film ataupun sastra, makanya itu exciting. Apalagi musiknya, Danny Elfman yang bikin soundtrack Sleepy Hollow itu keren banget, belum lagi "nguik nguik"nya Bernard Herrmann di "Psycho" itu legendaris. Eh, Psycho itu bukan horror sih, tapi shower scene-nya itu iconic banget lah. Dari dulu saya ingin ketemu hantu, dan kayaknya keinginan itu terrealisasi beberapa hari lalu. ......................................... Di Jogja kemarin saya bersama teman saya yang jadi executive producer ada keperluan meeting di sebuah hotel yang memang kalau di-google, Google sendiri autofill dengan "angker" dan "horror". Nah sambil menunggu, saya ingin ke toilet, jadi saya sendirian ke sana, sementara Nita menunggu (tapi Nita bisa melihat pintu toiletnya dari tempat dia duduk). Begitu saya masuk toilet (yang tidak terlalu besar, hanya ada 2 urinoir dan beberapa pintu untuk toilet duduk), ada bapak-bapak tua (saya tahunya tua karena beruban ---eehmmm jadi saya juga tua dong?), berbaju batik dan menghadap tembok tapi di pojok, sama seperti kalau kita waktu sekolah dulu dihukum guru. Jadi dia tidak membelakangi kita karena sedang "bertugas sebagai laki-laki" di urinoir. Saya risih dong, jadi saya bilang, "maaf pak, permisi", karena dia memang agak mengganggu karena berdirinya persis sebelah urinoir. Eh, dia cuma kayak menoleh tanpa melihat saya, terus melihat ke tembok lagi. Saya annoyed dong, dan karena saya tidak terlalu kebelet, ya udah saya keluar. Nita tanya "kok udah"? (abis cepet banget kali ya), dan saya cerita tentang si bapak. Terus saya melihat security hotel di receptionist, jadi saya ngadu soal si bapak itu. Eh sang security langsung jawab dgn ramah "oh, iya pak, sini saya antar" (padahal saya gak butuh diantar, saya butuhnya dia ngomong ama bapak tsb). Dia kayaknya ngerti banget masalah ini, terus langsung ke toilet sementara saya ogah-ogahan di belakangnya, jadi sang security masuk toilet dan tidak lama kemudian keluar dan bilang kepada saya yang sudah di dekat pintu toilet "ok pak, silakan sudah bisa". "Loh bapak itu ga mau keluar?" tanya saya. "Udah ga ada pak", jawabnya. Padahal saya tidak melihat siapa-siapa keluar, dan pintu toilet itu cuma satu. Ya udah, saya masuk, dan ternyata memang sudah tidak ada siapa-siapa, jadi ya saya melakukan tugas saya sebagai seorang laki-laki sambil berdiri tegak dan fokus (eh yang tegak dan fokus itu postur saya ya). Aman terkendali. .................................................................. Balik ke tempat teman saya, dia tanya, "si bapak gimana"? Saya jawab "udah keluar kali" tapi kok dia bilang dia nggak liat siapa-siapa keluar. Nah, gitu deh. Mungkin juga dia bukan hantu, tapi calon aktor Indiana Jones 6 yang umur 80 masih bisa escape ngelubangin langit-langit WC, tapi buat apa juga escape dari saya kan? Saya bukan FBI yang lagi ngejar dia. ......................................................... Gitu deh. Eh udah baca interview saya ama Aldo Sianturi, tokoh bisnis musik Indonesia? Nih deh http://www.aldosianturi.net/30-deep-questions-with-ananda-sukarlan/ . Ok guys, have a nice weekend!

In memoriam Brigifine Ediansyah Syams

This bloody Covid 19 has been more than a year with us, and it has taken a lot of lives dear to us all. The latest was my friend, the piano teacher Brigifine E. Syams just 2 weeks ago in July, and her mom followed her to heaven yesterday (also of Covid 19). To make the story short, her family was exposed and infected with Covid including her mom. Both Pipin (that's her nickname) and her mom were the ones with the worst conditions, and when Pipin passed away 2 weeks ago, nobody dared to tell her mom (who was still in critical condition, though conscious). I was told that her mom passed away yesterday, still without learning the loss of her daughter (good for her! She will get a nice surprise in heaven like .... "Hey! Whatcha doin' here, baby?" and they will both live in eternal happiness). ........................................................................................................................................ My last conversation with Pipin was in fact not about music, but about .... what else ... yeah, Covid 19 and how it affected (badly, obviously) the musical education. Some ex-students of her (since she started teaching, she has given birth to hundreds of pianists! And that wasn't so long ago, since she was still in her early 40s when she died) and even just her friends and colleagues have asked me if I would write any kind of piano piece so they can play it to have her in their memories. I certainly would write something, a small one hopefully before I leave again for my concert shooting tour early next week. Her good friend, Willyana Zhao (Cing Cing is her nickname) has agreed to organize something (online concert, for now) with her (ex)-students and pianists friends and suggested me to write a set of variations .... -- why oh why do small ideas get bigger?? Anyway, there are still several things in my mind to get rid of, but I promised (at least myself) to write something to cherish the memory of Brigifine, whatever it is and may become. May you and your mom Requiescat in Pace, Pipin, Requiem Aeternam.

Rapsodia Nusantara Wannabees

Not that I am over-optimistic about finishing the whole set of Rapsodia Nusantara (meaning : covering all the 34 provinces of the Republic of Indonesia), but those petitions, appeals, pleadings by (sometimes not so-) young pianists to make Rapsodia Nusantara easier to play (and for non-classical music listeners: easier to listen!) start to tickle my brain. I did write Rapsodia no. 26 (from the song "Tano Niha" from Nias Islands) which is not so difficult, but I guess people would miss the point of showing-off virtuosity if I'd make easy(-ier) Rapsies. ......................................................................................................................................... Therefore I start a new project, making shorter and easier works based on Indonesian folksongs for piano. In fact, I did already a few years ago, "Two Kaili Folksongs". At that time it was for a fundraising project for the victims of tsunami in Sulawesi, so I wanted it to be short and simple so that I could immediately finish and perform it, since I was just given a few days (practically only hours) to prepare it. And then there was the Prelude & Fugue on "Angso Duo", a folksong from Jambi, commissioned by an owner of a music school there a few years ago. ......................................................................................................................................... Last week on my flight from Jakarta to Bilbao, the plane was quite empty. There is this buzz on the Corona Virus, and people in Asia are taking it very seriously. So I wrote a polyphonic game (almost a fugue) on a theme from Ambon, "Gepe-gepe" on board after dinner was served and before I slept. Now, a few days after I landed, I made it into the final part of a kind of fantasy of about 4 minutes. I knew it's not gonna be another Rapsodia, since I have written several, quite difficult ones, based on Ambonese folksongs (no.3 based on "Rasa Sayange" and "Sarinande", no. 4 on "Buka Pintu", and no. 21 on "Goro-gorone"). So, I thought of making the "Kaili Folksongs" and this new Ambonese fantasy as the beginning of a new series of piano works. Now, do you have a suggestion for the title of the whole series? This will be quite "light" for me, mostly done as doodles in my travels like last week. I'm toying the title "Polifonia Nusantara" .... you think it's OK? The term polifonia is because usually they are ... well ... polyphonic, should they be fugues, canons, passacaglia, chaconne etc. Shortly speaking, those kinda music which are not composed anymore these days due to our degraded brains and incapability of listening to more than one melody at a time. ......................................................................................................................................... So let's do this. If I start composing a new piano work based on an Indonesian folksong, I'll keep my mind open. It might be a new Rapsodia, it might be a Polifonia (or whatever we decide to call them). But you can give up your hopes for having easy(-ier) Rapsodia Nusantara from me, ok? Number 26 will be the one and only easy one. It's perhaps the only one playable by the participants of the Junior Category of the Ananda Sukarlan Award.

Ghost, not Buster, not a movie, but still in love with them

Spectrophilia: 1. Sexual attraction to ghosts. 2. Engaging in sexual activity with a ghost. .......................................................................................................................................... While religious radicalism (our President proposed a better term: religious manipulation) is very much on the rise in Indonesia and many countries, Spectrophilia is used by religious leaders to lure their followers. Among others, they say that if we die, we will have 72 angels (no description whether they are beautiful, fitting our taste or sexual orientation, or just random angels) serving us continuously. That's why some suicide bombers wore a protector around their vital organ, hoping that they would still "function well" after they enter heaven. .......................................................................................................................................... I don't have spectrophilia, but I did have a period of depression in my early 20s, and so I was fascinated with those dark places that attract people to commit suicide. In those places I sat down and wrote sketches of textures, chords and their progressions and change of colours, inspired by anything in those places. Those sketches remain in a pile of manuscripts, and when the fantastic Duo Xistra whose concert I listened to around 2 years ago asked me for a piece for their anti-mainstream formation of flute & accordion producing that rich and strange atmosphere, I immediately thought to resuscitate these sketches and develop them into real music, among others because duo Xistra were formed in Galicia, and Finisterre was one of the places that fascinated me in my younger years .... to consider committing suicide. .......................................................................................................................................... Cape Finisterre (literally means The End of the World) in Galicia is a beautiful place facing the Atlantic Ocean, wild rough landscapes and amazing beaches, some (protected by the cape) with calm waters and others with strong waves. And the greatest attraction of all times: the sunset over the enormity of the ocean, the sea of the end of the world. Unfortunately it's the real end of the world for many people too. Finisterre has long evoked a profound sense of mystery in the souls of mankind. The roots of the legendary aura of this site, open to the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean, can be found in the mythology of the first European inhabitants. They believed that, after death, the earthly life was replaced by another existence on an island situated to the west, where the sun set. In Celtic legends it is frequent to find images of heroes making their final journey to this paradise in a stone vessel. This merging of stone, sea and spiritual life is still present in different forms along the Costa de Morte (Coast of Death). .......................................................................................................................................... I visited Aokigahara Forest, known to be "suicide forest" since suicidal people could just enter it and they will never return, lured by the "yurei" inside the forest. In the Japanese popular belief, if a person dies in a deep sense of hatred, anger, sadness, or desire for revenge, their soul can’t leave this world and continues to wander, appearing to people affected by the spell or those who cross his path . These souls are called yurei and they can be found in many modern cultural references such as movies as well. Unlike western horror movies, where the ghost wants something specific in order to be able to rest in peace, the yurei wants nothing in particular; they just want to have their curse removed or conflicts resolved. .......................................................................................................................................... When the forest guardians find a dead body, they will take it to a special room designed for dead bodies that can be found next to the forest. Here, the body will be placed on a bed. What is more interesting though, is that a guard will sleep in the same room with the body. This may seem surprising, but it is said that if the corpse is left alone in the room, its yurei will move all night in the dormitories screaming and being deranged. .......................................................................................................................................... I haven't thought of the third piece yet, but I have always been wishing to develop my sketches I did at Isola de San Michele, in Venice. There lies the graves of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Ezra Pound, Joseph Brodsky and many more. It's an island of cemetary, but it's so peaceful. You should visit it during sunset, and you'll never forget the feeling. But then this has nothing to do with suicides, but yeah, of ghosts. My favorite ghosts, if they haven't reincarnated yet. So, we'll see about this third piece of Spectrophilia. Now, back to writing the actual notes.

My Foreword for Rapsodia 23,24 and some new Variations

All the works in this book were written in 2019 and mostly (I would say 80% of them) in Indonesia. It is quite a bleak period at the moment and now, preparing for the publishing of this book, I realized that much of the music reflects this. Religious radicalism and extremism are very much on the rise, constantly threatening the government and the peaceful lives of the society. Until just about a few years ago Indonesia was famous for its unique cultural brand of religious tolerance and nationalism. Even until now, Indonesia is the test bed for political and social theories. Indonesia’s evolution from hundreds of languages and cultures into a single nationalism was used by Benedict Anderson to showcase how communities are “imagined” and created. It's quite amazing how 17,000 islands and dozens of competing histories and geographies were carefully interpreted to create the Archipelagic national identity of Indonesia. My musical works starting 2016 reflected my anxiety and discomfort of the situation: starting from "December 2016", my orchestral works "The Voyage to Marege" and the Marzukiana concertos up to "No More Moonlight Over Jakarta" which depicts the imprisonment of my hero, the Jakarta governor Basuki TP. .......................................................................................................................................... At this moment my feeling is more about nostalgia but also hope for a pluralist, tolerant Indonesia like it used to be, pre-2016. We need this tolerance and common sense back, since they are instrumental to the development of a peaceful state, one that supports progress. Musical as well as other artistic education is crucial in character building of a better society and individuals. .......................................................................................................................................... Rapsodia Nusantara no. 23 is the second Rapsodia that I wrote for the left hand alone (the first was Rapsy 15). I am a strong believer in the potentials of disabled people; their disabilities should not hinder them from developing their talents and contributions to their surroundings. What if a one-handed person had more musical talents than "normal" two-handed people? What is "disability" anyway? I can't tell how many times has it occured, while I was writing down the music in my head, that I had to "simplify" it since the music required more than 10 fingers or 2 hands. That would mean that most of my music is written for pianists of "limited ability", right? Anyway, Rapsy 23 differs from Rapsy 15 in its concept, that I don't want to constantly give the illusion of it being played by two hands. No. 23 is also more percussive and toccata-like, and shows that it's perfectly ok for the piano sound to be played just with five fingers of one hand. And it's very much possible to be a professional pianist with one hand! .......................................................................................................................................... Rapsodia Nusantara no. 24 was commissioned by Tifa Foundation to be premiered at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in October 2019. Pelita Harapan University immediately took the iniciative to introduce it (with the composer performing it, since nobody else has played it for the moment) to the Jakarta public. Tifa asked me that it should be based on any traditional music from the regency of Dogiyai in Papua to commemorate the passing away of Father Neles Tebay, who had worked tirelessly to end the long-running violent conflict in Papua using peaceful dialogue. I then found the song (which starts with a chanting) "Domidow" from the specific village Paniai of that regency. .......................................................................................................................................... I don't consider myself a political artist. My position is like that of Shostakovich: music is our defense and statement against the attacks towards us and the society. That's why I am so happy for the birth of a new political party in Indonesia, founded by a group of young, progressive people defending minorities and differences. I have done some events to raise funds for them, among others by auctioning my music. Bagimu Negeri is well-known a patriotic song by Kusbini, and I find it so appropriate to make a series of variations on it (which turned out to be quite dark is some sections, I think due to my --sometimes-- pessimistic views of this moment). The score was then auctioned in a fundraising concert done for this new party, and generously acquired by Imelda & James Joseph who dedicated this music "to Indonesia, our home". .......................................................................................................................................... Both Rapsodia Nusantara no. 23 and 24, as well as the "Bagimu Negeri" Variations are recommended pieces for the Ananda Sukarlan Award 2020, which hopefully would contribute in promoting our (traditional) musical heritage to a bigger public through the fingers of pianists (not necessarily Indonesians) who would perform these works. .......................................................................................................................................... "Mendelssohn's Wedding March Going East" was commissioned by a Meidyati Abadi for the 55th anniversary gift of her parents, Gregorius Kunar Abadi and Katarina Maria Teresia Sugondo, but at that moment her father was lying sick at the hospital. I managed to make a (very amateur) recording through my smartphone to be shown to her father on his sickbed before he then passed away, a few days after the actual anniversary. I wrote this in a few hours, knowing that I didn't have much time and planned to write more variations in the future, but now a few months later, revisiting this music for its publishing I feel that it's fine as it is. I want to keep it simple (musically as well as its pianistic techniques), short and (hopefully) meaningful beyond its notes. .......................................................................................................................................... Variations on the old Christmas song "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", together with the "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" variations were written for the new Yamaha En-spire grand piano which I was elected to be one of its ambassadors for this year, for their Christmas edition. I must admit, on the contrary of the creative process of the previous "wedding march variations", I got carried away with this. I had much time to write, it was really fun composing 1 or 2 variations a day during a few weeks during my travels and spare time between working on bigger projects without realizing how many variations I have written. When the deadline approached and I had to compile them and restructure the music, I found out that I wrote more variations than I needed! This final work is already cut from the variations that I consider not so good and therefore thrown away. This explains why "Hark!" becomes a quite long and complex work, unlike the light and simpler "God Rest Ye" that only consists of 5 variations. Moral of the story: don't enjoy your work too much! .......................................................................................................................................... Ananda Sukarlan, September 7, 2019 .......................................................................................................................................... P.S. I am deeply grateful to visual artist Julie Putra for her exquisite design for the cover of this book. It's a metaphorical depiction of the Bird of Paradise (Cendrawasih), natural of Papua, using the actual notes of Rapsodia Nusantara no. 24. I do it with music, she with design.

My Article about Duo 590 published at The Jakarta Post, 10 August

An Intent of "Violation" to Jakarta Music Lovers, by Ananda Sukarlan, composer & pianist (this title is changed in the printed version into : Duo 590 Dazzles Jakarta Music Lovers) .......................................................................................................................................... The viola might not be a popular instrument in Indonesia, but a preview in an online newspaper might be the booster for the public's enthusiasm for violist Adam Cordle's recent concerts in Jakarta. The article was cleverly titled "The handsome American violist will perform in Jakarta", and most probably it was the mixture of the word "handsome" and the mystery of the viola that attracted the audience. And they were not disappointed at all, not only by his physical appearance, but even more by his high musicianship and virtuosity. The viola is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower sound. It serves as a "bridge" between the violin and the cello in chamber music, and for centuries it was considered as such, merely a filling instrument. It wasn't until the 20th century that it earned the stature it deserves, as an instrument with a poignant, warm and mellow sound. Thanks to composers such as Paul Hindemith, William Walton, Toru Takemitsu and Alfred Schnittke it became popular through their works for solo viola and orchestra. .......................................................................................................................................... This young violist who has performed throughout North America and Europe with different partners, chamber groups and orchestras is at the moment in Jakarta and has performed with his duo partner who equally impressed the audience, Indonesian pianist Edith Widayani, as Duo 590. They performed 2 concerts last week in Jakarta and will perform again this weekend. On August 2nd they performed at the Institut Francais d'Indonesie (IFI), with a program of exclusively French Women Composers of the early 20th century: Nadia Boulanger, Fernande Decruck and Marcelle Soulage. The next day they did a "lighter" program, for an afternoon of High Tea at the Writers Bar, Raffles Hotel. .......................................................................................................................................... But first the "590" needs an explanation. 590 is the code for the courses that Eastman School of Music doctoral students take as part of their curriculum. Adam and Edith met in one of these courses in their first semester of graduate study. Also, one of the main interstates in Rochester—where Eastman is located—is also named 590. So, Duo 590 references both how and where they were founded. This year, both musicians have earned their Doctorate degrees on Music from that prestigious institution. .......................................................................................................................................... From the French women's program at IFI, Nadia Boulanger was the only name that is known by most of the Jakarta audience. Her work played was the "Three Pieces for Cello & Piano" and it was Cordle's initiative to play it on an instrument one octave higher -- and it worked so well. But it was Marcelle Soulage's Sonata in A minor, op. 25 that convinced the audience as a forgotten (or ignored?) great work. Soulage (1894-1970) composed prolifically, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Marc Sauval but then was almost totally forgotten after her death. Many of her works remained unrecorded, and in fact a YouTube post of this mentioned Sonata is only available by Duo 590. Listening to this 4-movement work really aroused the audience's curiosity to discover more works by this fabulous composer, and this dazzling Duo 590 should definitely make a CD recording of this forgotten musical gem. .......................................................................................................................................... The concert at Raffles Hotel hit a lighter note. The audience was more relaxed in a much more intimate setting at the Writers Bar, and they even conversed with the musicians. This time "590" performed shorter and "easier listening" works by a.o. Gabriel Faure, Franz Liszt, two movements of the Soulage Sonata (on the request of the audience who grew to love the piece the day before) and the writer's Someone's Stolen Her Heart (and I found it) written during my early conservatory days and --as the title implies-- evoking a not-meant-to-be teenage crush. .......................................................................................................................................... Adam Cordle will perform again, this time as a soloist with a chamber orchestra, on Sunday, August 12th in Soehanna Hall (The Energy Building, SCBD) at 3 p.m, giving the World Premiere of the writer's new work, "Sebuah Simfoni Tentang Perempuan" (A Symphony on Women). This 20-minute (Chamber-) Symphony is commissioned by the former RI President, B.J. Habibie (through the Habibie-Ainun Foundation) to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Reformation in Indonesia, focusing the merits and contribution of women on this aspect. The work is written for solo viola, narrator and 8 instruments. The narration is written by prominent writer Putu Fajar Arcana and will be read by actress Maryam Supraba. Before the new work is performed, Adam will show his prowess by performing my virtuosic works for viola and piano, again with Edith Widayani.

My article for the Autistic Spectrum Digest apps, Sept. 2014

Opening the AS Digest apps on my smartphone, am surprised that my article from 4 years ago was still there. It used to achieve the "article of the month" in September 2014. Anyway, I submitted this article to them. If you wanna download their apps, just go to Apps Store and search "Autistic Spectrum Digest". .......................................................................................................................................... Last year I was taping an interview for one of the most popular talkshows on Indonesian TV, "Tea Time with Desi Anwar". Desi is one of the top reporters in this country, and meeting her in that session convinced me that she deserves her reputation. During the breaks I quickly decided that I will talk about a subject which I never talked publicly before (although everyone who looks at me knows that I suffer from it) which is the Tourette Syndrome (TS), and how I suffered from it. In all the hundreds of interviews with reporters I've done throughout my life, I haven't opened up this matter to any one of them, and they were all nice enough not to touch this matter. At Desi's program, it was me who decided to talk, not her. And then I posted about Hans Asperger a few months ago in my facebook, at the International Asperger's Day on Feb. 18th that coincided with Asperger's birthday in 1906, in which I confirmed and admitted that indeed I am convinced that besides Tourette's Syndrome, I also am an "Aspie" -- the popular term for us who have Asperger's Syndrome. (please read my blog http://andystarblogger.blogspot.com.es/2013_05_01_archive.html for my entry about Tourette Syndrome). It is quite common for a person to have both Tourette AND Asperger, since they both fall under the same autistic spectrum. .......................................................................................................................................... My name is Ananda Sukarlan, and I am a composer and pianist. With this profession, it is not easy to have both Tourette and Asperger's Syndrome. It all began when I was diagnosed in 1996 with a clear Tourette Syndrome and a "high probability" of Asperger's Syndrome. I even don't understand why they put Asperger with an apostrophe "s", which they don't put with Tourette! Oh well, psychologists, they are all full of mysteries. From now on, I'll refer to them with AS and TS only. .......................................................................................................................................... AS remains a controversial diagnosis due to its unclear relationship to the autism spectrum since Mr. Asperger's paper published in 1944. Only in the 1980s that people took interest in it. I have indeed given a clue of my AS in an interview at the Jakarta Post with writer Bruce Emond, back in 2008 during the celebration of my 40th birthday : http://andystarblogger.blogspot.com.es/2010/09/horribly-lonely-in-jakarta-post.html . I quote myself answering Mr. Emond's question: What would people be surprised to know about you?. I answered: I have this strange hormone in me which provokes the feeling of extreme loneliness (even if I am in a crowd). It’s been working inside me since I was a teenager. And that loneliness cannot be cured by just being with someone. When it happens, it usually indicates that I should write music. My best music is written when I am feeling horribly lonely. .......................................................................................................................................... Being lonely, or alone, is a common trait for Aspies. AS, as with the other syndromes in the autistic spectrum, has more to do with social and psychological aspects than a physical one. I won't try to explain everything about AS, since I am not an expert in that, and also since AS is still a mysterious syndrome. The problem is that there are so many speculations about people in the past who allegedly suffered from AS which I find rather disconcerting, such as Steve Jobs, Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. Even Mozart! With Mozart, his Tourette Syndrome was pretty convincing, but how would one know that he had AS too? Anyway, there are similar traits of people with TS or AS. What I would like to say is just that we, people with AS and TS could, and even should, behave and socialize quite "normally". I certainly --and am sure I represent other people with AS and TS-- do not want to be treated differently. Yeah, during the Nazi era, people like us were put into concentration camps, but that was the case of everyone "different", such as homosexuals etc. In fact, it is proven that people with AS usually excel in one or even several fields, since a particular part of our brain is highly activated. Therefore, we get people with AS like Elon Musk, Lionel Messi or the founder & designer of Pokemon game, Satoshi Tajiri. .......................................................................................................................................... Another thing I would like to rectify is the common belief that people with AS can't be "empathic". That's very wrong. In fact, after talking with fellow Aspies, I can tell you that we are just the opposite: we are hypersensitive people. We just don't know, most of the times, how to express it physically. And I think this is where my music comes from : it can express things which I am unable to express through gestures, words or actions. So, that convinced me again of what I always said about music : We write, perform and play music to express, not to impress.

Back to blogging on Barcelona

It's been more than 3 months! Yeah, am back now with my recent coverage for The Jakarta Post on this important pianistic event. Again, it was edited more than I would like to, and they even changed my title (maybe because mine is not real English, but it's shorter, catchier and .... well, I'd use the word "should learn" instead of "must learn") so here's my original writing. Barcelona Pianistica .......................................................................................................................................... by Ananda Sukarlan, composer, founder of Ananda Sukarlan Award Piano Competition .......................................................................................................................................... The real issue of a young pianist's career is not to win competitions, but what happens after they win (or not). And that's not only their issue, it is also a big issue for the competition organizers: how to promote them and present them to "the real world" through promotors and organizers. A piano competition is not musical career; musical career starts immediately after one wins it. The problem is, winning a competition is diving to it, and most pianists learned how to dive so well but haven't learned how to swim. .......................................................................................................................................... That was one of the major issues discussed in the first ever Conference of International Piano Competitions (IPC), held at Palau de la Musica in Barcelona on March 19-21. It was attended by 154 representatives of piano competitions of all continents, even Africa (the IPC in Rabat, Marocco). It goes without saying that Italy has the biggest number of representatives, since it is the country with the most piano competitions on this planet to date. The brain behind all this is Gustav Alink, a guy who has a very rare interest and passion since his young age: piano competitions. Not that he is a musician ; oh yes, he studied music in his young age, but by playing violin, not piano. He studied mathematics at the university and worked in that field between 1981 and 1995, but then fully returned to the music world by conducting a lot of research in piano competitions that resulted in a series of books which he authored about the IPCs worldwide, and eventually created the Alink-Argerich Foundation (AAF) in 1999. As the name of the foundation implies, he founded it together with the prominent Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich. Argerich remains as the patron of this foundation to date, due to her constant support and interest in young talents. .......................................................................................................................................... Usually pianists win competitions before they are 25 (although most competitions put the limit 27 or 28 years of age for participants), and it is no secret that many promoters & concert organizers are reluctant to include "young, unknown pianists" in their concert series or festivals, even though they have proven their artistic excellence in competitions. In Indonesia, it is not a secret anymore that orchestras only hire soloists who are connected to them as friends, students of friends etc., and the weight of this "good connection" is heavier than the musical quality of the soloist(s) most of the time. This is one reason that I organize the biennal Ananda Sukarlan Award IPC (whose next edition will be July this year) since 2008: to provide pianists with artistic merits that the promotors, orchestra managers and organizers could just pick. .......................................................................................................................................... But what is "artistic excellence"? Many pianists define it as simply "knowing how to play Bach, Beethoven, Chopin & Liszt in a competition". Does the real world out there still need more pianists who play those classics? Carles Lama, Catalan pianist and manager of the CD company KNS Classical , put it wisely in his speech: "Music is about being unique". Too many young pianists have (great) talents and skill, but having a strong identity of oneself is rare. .......................................................................................................................................... Another classical but still always "hot" problem is the inevitable subjectivity of the jury members in the way they judge the participants, which goes down to one word, "respect". The judges should not have power over the participants; the participants deserve their places and awards according to their own artistic merit. Respect means from everybody to everybody: judge to participants and vice versa, and them to the audience and vice versa. The jury may judge the participants, but the audience will judge the jury. When there is respect, there is honesty and transparency. One solution offered was that "transparency equals secrecy". It is quite a radical solution, but worth trying: the judges should just give a mark to each participant and keep it secret from the other judges. Those numbers are then computed, and everyone should agree with the total which is the end result without further discussions. .......................................................................................................................................... It is a trend now to have prominent pianists, not pedagogues or "famous competition judges" as artistic directors of several competitions. This way, they automatically become the icon, or ambassador of the competition. Some of them who attended include Piers Lane for the Sydney IPC and Noriko Ogawa for the Hamamatsu IPC. Piers Lane is one of Australia's prominent artist, and his recording of the complete Piano Concertos of Malcolm Williamson has made the music of this Australian composer with a distinctive voice known to the world, and a big boost for Australian music worldwide. As with Noriko Ogawa, her most celebrated recording was the complete piano music of Toru Takemitsu. Ogawa also serves as the Cultural Ambassador for the National Autistic Society of Japan. .......................................................................................................................................... This conference served as a great meeting point for competition organizers, and hopefully if there is a next one, competitors would be encouraged to join as well. In any case, it is a great beginning to address many shortcomings of competitions ; some of these problems were still not solved, but at least they are addressed or being admitted that competitions may not be the best way to start a musical career, but it is, for now, the only feasible one.

Honoured by The Jakarta Post

In today's edition of The Jakarta Post, which is their last edition of this year, they publish "Farewell 2017, Ringing in the New Year" which is interviews with --who they consider-- the most important figures of 2017. In the arts & culture, I am deeply honoured to be one of them, together with such prominent --and cool-- people: the pop singer Raisa, the bestseller author Intan Paramaditha, movie star Ario Bayu, designer Tex Saverio, contemporary artist FX Harsono, filmmaker Edwin and the most translated, and perhaps the most literary awards receiver, Indonesian author Eka Kurniawan. The Jakarta Post sent me their questions a few days ago, and these are my original answers. .......................................................................................................................................... ++ This year, 2017, what are the most important accomplishments that you made, both professionally and personally? John Lennon said that "life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans". I was commissioned by several institutions, rejected some due to time constraints and/or my disinterest with the subject, and accepted others, and I was quite happy with the works I wrote for those commissions I accepted. I felt I have contributed my grain of sand to the repertory of classical music. .......................................................................................................................................... Personally? My daughter entered the university, the faculty she has had the passion for a long time: mathematics. So she's happy, and I'm happy. .......................................................................................................................................... ++ As a musician is 2017 a happy year for you? Why? Please elaborate .......................................................................................................................................... It's quite an inspirational and fertile year for me, in terms of creativity. I met many inspirational new people and new friends. It's elaborated in the previous question, right? .......................................................................................................................................... ++ Is there any bad, or even worst, moment for you this year? Any wish that did not yet materialize? .......................................................................................................................................... Certainly it's that notorious event in November of my walkout during the Jakarta governor's speech, and my own speech afterwards. That wasn't the worst moment; it's the days following it, when it was politicized, twisted and slandered. I spent the next 4 days trying to protect my almamater from being attacked, by giving interviews where I told the truth, but not all the truth. I still wish, now that things have calmed down, to do a "tell all" interview of what really happened. Having said that, I would like to reitarerate that I don't feel sorry, nor regret for what I did. I did what I thought, and still think, is correct. I regret what happened afterwards and what some people did to it to satisfy their needs. What is good for me is that thanks to this incident, I discovered who my real friends are, and who stabbed me from the back. It was painful, but necessary. .......................................................................................................................................... ++ What's your biggest plan for 2018, professionally and personally? Maybe new project, travel plan or else? .......................................................................................................................................... I have long wished to write an opera that would describe the way an Aspie (a bearer of Asperger's Syndrome) think and feel. It doesn't have to be about an Aspie, but I would like it to have multilayered, juxtaposed emotions. It's difficult to describe it in words, of course. For now, I am looking for materials or stories, containing at least two persons of different characters, and I would like to mix them up. It could be surrealistic for some listeners, for example someone who is in love but full of anger with the person (s)he's in love with, etc. Perhaps the best way to describe it is the last scene of Godfather III, where Michael Corleone's daughter was shot and died in her father's arms: a violent scene, but the music is that exquisite melody of Cavalleria Rusticana. Basically it's to reveal to the listeners that we do have hidden emotions that we never experience, if not triggered by music. And I think only an Aspie can produce that kind of music. I am giving myself the deadline of the end of next year, since without the (self-imposed) deadline, I wouldn't finish it. .......................................................................................................................................... What is not planned by me nor my manager is the many celebrations by various institutions on my 50th birthday, for which I am very grateful. Mostly they are music schools or academies where their students study and perform my music for their instruments. I am deeply humbled. As my own 2018 goal, it is to accomplish the goals of 2017 that I should've done in 2016 coz I promised in 2015 to fulfil the resolution of 2014!

Interview on my work "Communication Breakdown" for flute, bassoon & piano

This is an interview by seni.co.id in Indonesian with me, around the time of the premiere of my 7-minute Trio for Flute, Bassoon & piano last October. I am sure google translate would help :) .......................................................................................................................................... Baru saja Ananda Sukarlan memperdanakan karya barunya yang cukup unik, yaitu "menterjemahkan" lukisan berjudul "Kegelapan" karya Kukuh Nuswantoro yang merupakan karya pemenang UOB Painting of the Year 2017 menjadi musik. Karya ini dikukuhkan sebagai pemenang dari Indonesia oleh dewan juri yang terdiri dari Agung Hujatnikajennong, Hendro Wiyanto dan Nindityo Adipurnomo. “Kegelapan” akan dikirim ke Singapura untuk berikutnya berkompetisi dalam UOB Painting of the Year tingkat Asia Tenggara awal November ini. Karya musik Ananda yang berjudul Communication Breakdown baru saja diperdanakan pada saat gala pengumuman pemenang di Ballroom gedung UOB, Rabu 25 Oktober yang lalu, dimainkan oleh pemain flute dari Spanyol Carmen Caballero, pemain fagot Stephanie Marcia dan Ananda sendiri. .......................................................................................................................................... Seni : Apa dasar anda untuk menerima permintaan UOB membuat karya ini sebelum anda tahu lukisannya? .......................................................................................................................................... AS: UOB memang sudah meminta saya sejak sebelum pemenang dipilih oleh dewan juri dan diumumkan. Waktu saya diminta untuk membuat musiknya, saya sebetulnya galau. Karena saya tidak bisa bilang "tidak bisa" setelah kita tahu karya pemenangnya. Kalau saya mau menolak, saya harus menolaknya sejak saat saya diminta, sebelum pemenangnya ketahuan. Tapi setelah saya pikir, saya mau menerima tantangan itu, karena toh saya selalu "menterjemahkan" lukisan-lukisan atau banyak hal yang saya lihat, baca atau rasakan ke dalam musik. Mungkin ini semacam "anugrah" atau "sisi positif" dari sindrome Asperger yang saya miliki. Nah, apakah saya akan menyukai lukisan itu atau tidak, itu lain hal. Tapi saya terima tantangannya. .......................................................................................................................................... Seni: Berapa lama anda butuhkan untuk membuat musiknya? .......................................................................................................................................... AS: Inginnya sih lebih lama, tapi saya hanya dikasih waktu sekitar 10 hari, sejak juri bertemu untuk menentukan pemenangnya sampai acara gala-nya tgl 25 Oktober lalu. Tapi itu justru membuat saya lebih fokus, tidak sedikit-sedikit bolak-balik ke dapur bikin kopi, nyemil dsb. hahaha .... ........................................................................................................................................... Seni : Apa yang anda lihat di lukisan pada pandangan pertama, dan bagaimana menterjemahkannya? .......................................................................................................................................... AS: Yang terutama adalah warna yang dominan, atau kombinasi warna. Itu menentukan akord-akordnya, serta "suasana" musiknya. Seringkali saya baru dapat mengerti emosi atau ekspresi dari suatu karya seni, baik lukisan, tulisan (baik puisi atau prosa) atau visual art lainnya justru setelah saya terjemahkan ke musik. Kemudian garis-garis serta figur itu menjadi semacam melodi, yang tentu saja karakternya menentukan instrumen atau kombinasi instrumen apakah yang akan memainkannya. Yang cukup mengejutkan buat saya, setelah karya saya selesai, itu partiturnya secara visual ada kesamaannya dengan lukisannya. "Taoge-taoge" not-not balok itu memenuhi halaman partitur membuat partitur itu jadi penuh dengan "kepala-kepala" yang ada di lukisannya. .......................................................................................................................................... Seni: Bagaimana dengan struktur musiknya, apakah mengikuti struktur lukisannya? .......................................................................................................................................... AS: Nah, ini belum tentu. Begini, kalau lukisan atau visual art lainnya itu menggunakan ruang (space), sedangkan di musik kita menggunakan waktu (time). Jadi "pandangan pertama" ke lukisan itu sangat penting, bisa 2 hal yang terjadi: bagian mana dari detail lukisan itu yang menarik perhatian kita, atau kebalikannya, kita lihatnya secara menyeluruh kemudian kita melihat detailnya. Untuk lukisan figur, seperti Monalisa (karya Leonardo da Vinci) misalnya, biasanya yang pertama lah yang terjadi, tapi di lukisan "Kegelapan" ini yang kedua. Kita tangkap dulu keseluruhannya, baru melihat detailsnya. Nah proses inilah menjadi linimasa dari karya musiknya. Karena saya melihat bahwa tema yang mendasar adalah kegagalan komunikasi, saya jadi ingat lagu Led Zeppelin tahun 70an, Communication Breakdown. Musik saya pun saya beri judul itu jadinya. Saya mengambil motif ritmiknya dari situ jadinya, dan ada quotation lagu aslinya 3 birama di tengah. Tapi musiknya saya akhiri dengan motif dari Beethoven Moonlight Sonata, yang menggambarkan suatu harapan akan keindahan dari sesuatu yang sudah ada sejak dahulu, tapi kini kita kehilangan. .......................................................................................................................................... Seni : Apa kesan anda terhadap lukisan itu setelah anda melihatnya? .......................................................................................................................................... AS: Hahaha .... itu situasi yang cukup lucu sih, saya kira lagi-lagi karena sindrome Asperger saya. Saya sih merasakan kuatnya karakter lukisan "Kegelapan" itu. Tapi saya tidak menyadari betapa "mengerikan"nya lukisan itu sampai setelah saya menyelesaikan musiknya. Musik saya sendiri, setelah saya baca partiturnya dari depan sampai belakang, cukup .... apa yah ....klaustrofobik, mungkin. Memang sih menurut mas Kukuh, itu tentang kekacauan, tapi kan kekacauan di seni itu harus terstruktur. Kita tidak bisa asal kacau saja. .......................................................................................................................................... Selain itu, setelah musiknya bunyi di kepala saya saya jadi sadar bahwa warna keseluruhan lukisan itu sebetulnya bukan "gelap" tapi "pucat", karena yang bunyi ternyata bukan akord misalnya mayor (yang biasanya "cemerlang"), minor (nah, ini lebih "gelap"), tapi akord lain lagi yang tidak ada namanya. Bunyi akord itu, kalau saya mesti katakan dengan kata-kata, ya "pucat". Buat saya sih ini sebuah discovery yang cukup surprising, karena biasanya saya tidak pernah memakai harmoni dan akord seperti itu. Sedangkan hal lain lagi adalah tidak adanya progresi akord, dimana akord "berjalan" dari satu akord ke berikutnya. Ini ada beberapa akord yang pucat yang kemudian saling bergiliran dan permutasi saja, dan inilah yang memberi kesan klaustrofobik karena musiknya seperti berputar-putar saja tidak berarah. .......................................................................................................................................... Seni : Lukisan apa saja yang telah anda buat jadi musik? .......................................................................................................................................... AS : Antara lain ada "Bacchus & Ariadne", yang ada di National Gallery of London, terus "Ixion"nya Jose de Ribera di Museo del Prado di Madrid. Yang lebih kontemporer, terakhir adalah karya saya Annanolli's Sky, itu berdasarkan sejumlah lukisan (jadi bukan satu lukisan tertentu) Tero Annanolli, seniman Finlandia. Di seluruh karyanya sampai sekitar 2 tahun yang lalu itu ada karakteristik yang sangat kuat dari caranya melukis langit (menggunakan bahan kanvas tersebut sebagai elemen penting, kadang-kadang), yang sangat menginspirasi saya. .......................................................................................................................................... Seni: Sudah dipagelarkan di Indonesia kah "Annanolli's Sky"? .......................................................................................................................................... AS: Nanti tanggal 10 Desember di Jakarta, untuk merayakan 100 tahun kemerdekaan Finlandia. Konser ini diadakan oleh Kedutaan Finlandia dan mendatangkan musikus Finlandia juga. Karya itu sebetulnya diminta oleh International Competition for Chamber Music di Arnuero, Spanyol 3 tahun lalu. Pokoknya saya diminta untuk membuat karya untuk piano dan kuartet gesek, temanya bebas. Nah karena saya baru datang dari pameran Annanolli, musik saya otomatis datangnya dari banyak kreasinya dia.

Another interview about social media with Indonesia Tatler

I dunno why Indonesia Tatler likes to interview me about social media. It's like there are no real social media experts around. But anyway, I gave them my grain of salt. Hope it's useful. This was done early December this year. I post my original answers, unedited. ........................................................................................................................................... 1. How opposed are you to the idea of social media as a positive platform for youths to showcase their talents? ........................................................................................................................................... I am 100% for it! It's just that we should use it wisely, and like a good performer, always think that whatever we post is for other people to see / read, and be ready that any of our posts could be retweeted/reposted and be viral. I have my own rule of "5 don'ts" before posting: 1. don't seek approval. 2. don't show off/boast/brag. 3. don't complain (I break this particular rule a lot, especially if I am feeling mellow watching the sky. But I try to make my complains poetic!). 4. don't be unkind (this include attacking or sharing a private information about someone). 5. don't post anything unnecessary to be read by your followers. Remember, their time is as precious as yours. ........................................................................................................................................... 2. What do you think social media has done in reviving classical music to the modern world? ........................................................................................................................................... I wrote an article in 2015 for Indonesia Tatler about this : http://www.indonesiatatler.com/arts-culture/etiquette/is-classical-music-really-dying-and-social-media-its-murderer and I won't change a word of that article --except some numbers of some celeb's followers and that now Instagram has gained popularity more than twitter in classical music --. In Asia certainly it has helped in bringing classical music to a (much) wider audience a lot. It also has proven that classical musicians are not as "narrow minded" as we're always looked upon. Now people can see that we feed on everything around us to inspire our artistry. Not only that, we interact in the business side of it: we are endorsed by certain products (not necessarily related to music) or becoming ambassadors of a certain cause. It can also benefit a community, like what I did today, using social media for socializing and informing on Asperger's Syndrome that I myself have. Personally speaking, questions and discussions with me on twitter tend to deal with other issues than music since those issues are more familiar with the laymen to be able to connect to the arts. You want an example? Look, on what issue are you asking me about in this interview? There you have it, right? ........................................................................................................................................... 3. In some recent news, you mentioned that social media has relation with the low level of tolerance in Indonesia and around the world, can you elaborate more? ........................................................................................................................................... Saying that social media is destroying us is like saying that guns are killing us. Of course it's the people who pull the trigger, or those who manages the social media. The problem is that the majority of the Indonesian society is not educated & prepared enough to use the social media. What we post, true or not, would be read by our followers, and people could retweet or repost it without checking its truth. An example: one could claim that he knows Arabic or a Qur'an expert, and post something that propagates fear among the ignorants such as "don't vote for a leader of a different religion than yours, otherwise you'd go to hell", and how could you validate it if you don't know Arabic? ........................................................................................................................................... 4. How can we improve the social media’s role when it comes to increase the level of tolerance among Indonesian society? ........................................................................................................................................... Social media can offer many distinct advantages as a new business model for musicians and companies in general, and there are people regularly using these sites who are aware yet genuine and authentic about what they put up in the face of ‘social perfection’. Even more than any "old fashioned business", there are ethics to do this, and one should think of the social impact when one posts something and not only aim for generating a high rating and popularity and in the end, financial income. ........................................................................................................................................... 5. What do you think is the biggest problem plaguing Indonesian society right now? ........................................................................................................................................... It's the cyber armies, Saracen accounts, hate speech by the religious radicals. They are doing criminal acts, not unlike robbery or rape, and they should be investigated and processed urgently. Every passing day is crucial to their strength, so time is crucial in cracking them down. President Jokowi is doing a great job in the infrastructure building in our country, but if he doesn't deal with those issues I mentioned, all his works will amount to nothing, since Saracen would prevail in provoking conflicts among the uneducated people, which is a big number. Every December, the Islamic radicals attacks against those who celebrate Christmas are getting more intense and ridiculous. Saracen does it by publishing fake news (mostly about religion, a sensitive issue among low class / uneducated people) about a community as if that community is attacking or mocking another community. Jokowi should not underestimate the power of ignorant people in huge quantities. Social media has a major role in bringing up democracy, and we always forget that what Plato meant about democracy in "The Republic" is not only that everybody has the same rights. It means that the leaders who are to be elected should only be fulfilled by the state of his necessary desires, but not the unnecessary ones. Necessary desires are desires we cannot overcome, such as our desire for shelter and sustenance. Unnecessary desires are desires that we are able to overcome, yet refuse to. These desires include luxuries and lavish possessions. These types of desires are a result of the necessity of status in the population, and that is addictive to any leaders. That's the root of corruption: not the necessity of money, but of status and power. So, voters should judge their candidates based solely on this, not on the similarity of religion or race. And the conflicts based on religion and race are easily triggered by the social media.

When deadline is approaching and a tweet saved my life

(Well ok, it's not my life, just my music. But music is my life, so there we are...) You know what's nice to be a composer? You can steal anyone's ideas from any fields of art, and nobody would notice. Not even the person you stole from. ........................................................................................................................................... On twitter, I follow lots of writers. They like to tweet flashes of ideas, which I can then use for my music in any aspects, transforming them to melodies, chords, rhythms, instrumental colours even forms and structures. And google arts & culture (before it's called the Google Art project), it's the coolest thing too! You can see hundreds of great paintings in Los Angeles, London, Del Prado (Madrid) so I found combinations of colours that were unimaginable for me before. ........................................................................................................................................... I've been scribbling materials for my new piece, which is basically connecting motifs from Puccini's Nessun Dorma and Ismail Marzuki's Melati di Tapal Batas. This work, entitled I Wish Pavarotti Had Met Marzuki, tries to convey what if Pavarotti knew Ismail Marzuki's music, the Indonesian songwriter I so admire. I believe that if Marzuki were used as a cultural asset of the nation and the government would seriously introduce his music to the international world, it will boost the image of Indonesian music as much as Puccini for Italy, or Mozart for Austria. Usually I plan a sort of architectural structure before I write one note. This time it is the other way around. I know the materials and how to develop them, but couldn't find the right structure. I always know how to write, but not always what to write. This time it's the other way around, since the overall form is still not taking shape in my simple brain. ........................................................................................................................................... Not until last night when I came back from my midnight walk around the pool of my appartment, still trying to find the right structure (I wonder if architects also do this???) and found a tweet by my admired writer, Dewi Ria Utari. She writes mostly short stories, even in a "horror" genre which I normally don't really fancy. But hers are different, and I would even call them poetic proses (or prosaic poems). The tweet is simple : Ketika senyap terlalu gaduh. Maka gelap kehilangan kelam (When silence is too noisy. Then darkness lost its dimness). Poignantly poetic, of course, but also very useful and practical for me! So, one of the tweets that I tweeted her back is "It's gonna be dark chords transforming into bright ones. Quiet gestures growing to virtuosic pianism. Back 2 work!"........................................................................................................................................... Deadline is approaching, the concert is in 3 weeks and every night becomes a WTF! night for me, keeping developing ideas but blindly walking in a strange jungle without any ideas of orientation. Press conference is scheduled next Tuesday, and I absolutely hate talking about my work to journalists (or even anybody) when it's not at least 90% finished. Not that it hasn't happened before, but I was always feeling burdened and weary about it. Thanks to DRU's tweet, am hoping to finish it between tonight and tomorrow, so I will have a quiet relaxing weekend. Now I am doing a COMPOSER's job : composing materials that are scattered around. With a clear idea of form in mind. And as Mary Poppins said : In ev'ry job that must be done, there's an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game! ........................................................................................................................................... On the 26th of November, the Pavarotti Foundation will bring Pavarotti's best students and Pavarotti's personal pianist to Jakarta, for a concert at Ciputra Artpreneur at 7 p.m. Pavarotti's widow will be present, which will make this event special. This event could be realized thanks to the invitation of the Italian Embassy and Instituto Italiano in Cultura in collaboration with the Ciputra Artpreneur. Indonesia's most prominent composer & pianist, Ananda Sukarlan, has agreed the commission by the Italian Embassy and Pavarotti Foundation to compose a new virtuosic piano work as a tribute to Pavarotti, who unfortunately had not visited and witness the beauty of Indonesia. At this upcoming concert on the 26th, this work will be premiered by the composer himself, which is expected to be a milestone in Italian and Indonesian cultural relations. (quoted from the press release by the Italian Embassy)