A tribute to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Yesterday I lost, we lost, one of the greatest inspirational figure in classical music. The great baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau died at 86 (he was born in 1925). He wasn't a great operatic figure, since his forte lies in the art of German lieder, but it was exactly that facet which inspired me a lot. His recording with Gerard Moore of Schubert's songcycle Winterreise must have been the best recording of that masterpiece, and he had recorded it with other pianists (including Alfred Brendel) several times. Ah, those good old times when we could make countless recordings and could be appreciated by music lovers. Now it's all the downloading culture in the internet. --------- The baritone voice used to be considered as "the tenor voice who couldn't hit high notes", and then Fischer-Dieskau came to rescue its reputation. I am not going to post his biography, since one can easily find it now by googling him. I just wanna write about his impact on me, mostly when I was still studying in my early 20s. The first recording of his I heard was Gustav Mahler's Lieder eine Fahrende Gesellen, with Leonard Bernstein, taking the three movements usually sung by a mezzo-soprano and making them very much his own. But after several other recordings of his I listened to, two of them made a special impact on me. The first one was Britten's War Requiem, whose baritone part was written inspired by and especially for him. It became one of the landmark pieces of my life, not only musically but also an eye-opener to the real meaning of war, and therefore life. Oh and of course Britten wrote his Songs and Proverbs of William Blake for Fischer-Dieskau, a beautiful songcycle for baritone and piano which I still dream of performing one day. -------------- The other one was Sir Michael Tippett's The Vision of St. Augustine, a work for baritone solo, choir & orchestra. Sir Michael in that work attempts the "reach to exceed humanity's grasp" with the baritone solo, the metaphor for the present that follows Augustine's account of the vision combined with the chorus, the symbol of the past and future with its commentary on Augustine's narrative. Out of these disparate and conflictive forces, transcendence erupts. Tippett shows us that with effort, humanity has the potential to reach transcendence through music, and Fischer-Dieskau realized his aspirations. Sir Michael avoided any reference to the tradition of the Music of the Spheres in the Vision of St. Augustine so as not espouse transcendence as attainable through manipulation of patterns and numerology. Instead he turned to the music of the angels, those messengers of God whose language discloses the music of transcendence, and consequently, the connection to the Divinity. Tippett's principal vocal technique is glossolalia, those vocalizations or excited repetitions of vowels to depict the character of angelic singing. Glossolalia, a term from the Greek, are the wordless sounds and shouts accompanying ecstasy. Glossolalia is most prevalent in the vision of eternity, particularly in extension of the final syllables of "alleluia." Unison singing beginning with the lowest male voices extending through the ranges of the highest female voices creating vast arches, using short note values and antiphonal singing complete the angelic vocalizations, and require virtuoso singing from the chorus. It was this piece hanging in the back of my mind when I wrote my own (much lesser in scale and artistic quality, unfortunately) second cantata LIBERTAS which has the same (again, less quantity of instruments) formation. You can download the whole cantata if you have an iPad, iPod touch or even in your iPhone by just searching my name on appStore. By the way, in that app called "Ananda Sukarlan - Premium" you can also listen to many of my songs for baritone, sung by Joseph Kristanto. Some of those songs owe their existence to Fischer-Dieskau's inspirational voice, I must say. And now heaven is so lucky to have Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He is singing now for the angels. Requiescat in Pace, Maestro. You deserve to leave this world by saying that you left it better than when you found it. At least a humble Indonesian boy who dreamt to be a musician & composer could realize it, thanks to you. And you've made him love music more, and made it a big part of his life.

Within me, Without me

(This is a continuation of previous entry, "Thank you for the music").

I must admit I regret that my project ANANDASUKARLAN@MUSICASA with the 27 vocalists terminated last week. The final concert was really marvellous, with those musicians putting all their passion in singing. But it also marked our last day of having fun, learning from each other and from my part a process of rejuvenation, working with the young & passionate vocalists.

Next week is the turn of the students and teaching staff of the Music Faculty of the Pelita Harapan University, one of the most prominent private universities in Indonesia. Thanks to its previous Dean of Music Faculty, Johannes Nugroho (a wonderful pianist & composer himself) who invited me, I will coach them in the interpretations of my music. Again, I won't talk about executional techniques since as with the Musicasa vocalists I am not able to play many of the instruments. I know how they work, what kind of sound I heard in my head, but not how to produce sounds with the instruments.

However, from the interpretational side it could be dangerous to "give away" a lot of my interpretational side to the musicians. After working with 27 vocalists last week (I call them "the 27"), I am even more convinced that the composer is the most narrow-minded person in the interpretation of his own piece. We composers of the particular piece only know and see from one side, while musicians (the good ones, naturally) see many possibilities of its interpretations. I always experience it when I am interpreting other composers' music. With the passing of time, the composer starts to see the piece clearer and more from a distance, objectively. It is always interesting to hear interpretations of my music without my involvement in preparing the performance, like the case of the fantastic performance by the tenor Samuel Tandei & pianist Ruthanne Fulton recently in Louisville, giving the world premiere of my 3 songs for tenor, "3S dalam Cinta". Just listen to it here : http://www.wuol.org/2010/11/tenor-samuel-tandei/ . A few details in his performance were not as I imagined it to sound, but since he expresses what he wants to communicate very well and convincingly, I really don't mind. It's still a poignant and touching performance, not mentioning his marvellous singing technique in singing my not-easy-at-all songs. A more "authentic" performance of those songs would be the ones we did at the Anandasukarlan@Musicasa concert since the tenors I accompanied (Justinus Budi Santoso & Ivan Jonathan from Musicasa) worked very closely with me, but then only time (not the composer) will tell, and judge, which performance will claim as the better one. And in fact, they don't have to be judged, both performances --and hopefully further performances by different tenors-- are artistically valid. There is no reason why Sam Tandei's performance couldn't be called "authentic". They all possess high musicianship anyway.

So, as much as I have learned from the 27, I am very much looking forward to the UPH project next week. Especially because they are, again, young people full of passion. And yeah, although now all of them are my instrumental music, they are not far from my favorite theme: sorrow, loneliness and (unrequited) love. Without words, they can even be better expressed. And understood.


The final concert of Universitas Pelita Harapan Conservatory of Music presents the music of Ananda Sukarlan will be held at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, December 11, 2010 at 8 p.m . More info & tickets through Chendra at 0818 891038 or ycep@yahoo.com

Thank you for the music

It's been an inspiring week working with vocalists of Musicasa with my works for (solo & duet) voice & piano, and working with 4 musicians in Singapore in premiering my work Vega & Altair at Esplanade the week before. I already wrote about how happy I was working with Katryna Tan, the harpist, in my previous entry, and it turned out that working with the other "more familiar" instrumentalists (flute, violin & cello) in this new & particular combination for me is also very nourishing.

Musicasa is a very high standard studio for voice training in Indonesia, and it has produced the best classical singers to date. Its founders are my good friends the conductor Tommy Prabowo and the baritone Joseph Kristanto, about whom I have written many times in this blog. And yeah, he is the dedicatee of my 5 songs for baritone & piano, "A untuk Akis, Alam & Angkasa", which will be performed in its entirity by his students in our final concert next week, Thursday the 25th, 7 p.m at Erasmus Huis.

Although I didn't write not even one new note for the last 10 days I do learn a lot, since I've been working with 27 singers with 27 (very) different characters and voice colours. It convinces me deeper that the human voice is not only the most beautiful musical instrument on this planet, but also the most versatile. Everyone is fantastic, each has his/her own strong points. It really has broadened my horizons on voice characteristics, and so I can, in the future, try new things and perhaps risking new kinds of virtuosity in writing for voice, since I feel (not only know) now its shortcomings, virtue and capabilities. Beware singers, I will write more difficult stuff in the future!

One thing in common with those young vocalists is that mostly, if not all of them, expected that they would get a "definitive version" of the song(s) they are singing by working with the composer. The composer, they think, knows best, and wants his work to sound exactly like "this" or "that". Wrong !! Well, of course I know more than them at this moment (during the interpreter's early stage of learning the music), but any composer would really love and appreciate having fresh approaches and interpretations from the singers. We composers need your intellectual & artistic contribution! That's why our music can be richer and alive, and in fact that's the advantage of music compared to the other fields of the arts. Once a painter finishes his painting, it will stay the same for the centuries to come, while a composer's job is not finished; it is continued by the musicians who interpret his music. The music always changes, and therefore I find those musicians who performs in "authentic instruments" and consulting "musicologists" (whatever this profession means!) to give "authentic performances", especially in music written during the period of Baroque, Bach and Before quite contradictive, and even absurd. Music is like a most beautiful human being. The composer gives birth to it, but it is the task of the musicians to nurture it and bring it up into a beautiful, kind & loving grown up creature .. and take care of it with love and attention so it would live long and prosper.

The ghosts of the Young Dead Soldiers

Hey, it's Narcissism time!. But I can't help it, I am a composer. We are creatures of continuous self-doubt so we need, once in a while, a boost for our ego. Besides, what's wrong of being self-congratulary sometimes ? So, I have a declaration to make, besides quoting Oscar Wilde's answer at the immigration office at a certain harbour "I have nothing to declare besides my genius" for the question "Do you have anything to declare?".

My own music which I love the most until now is the song "The Young Dead Soldiers do not Speak" from my second cantata, LIBERTAS. If a dictator suddenly appears and tells me to burn all my work, I'd burn all of them but would ask to spare that piece. Not even the whole Libertas cantata. The work itself doesn't have complex rhythms or polyphony, no innovative twists nor it is brilliant in any ways ; it is just the music which really came out of my head. Every note of it. Like when you open the tap, the water just flows, and perhaps I wasn't even so critical about it when I wrote it. It is even filled with recitatives, and as you know recitatives are NOT meant to be beautiful, nevertheless, I just love it, deeply. Of course it was also due to the fantastic performance of the world premiere, when all the musicians were so commited and very passionate. And that's another thing : when I wrote it, I knew it will be sung by my dearest friends whose dedication to music is a bit more than 100% : the baritone Joseph Kristanto and the ITB Choir and its conductor, Indra Listiyanto. They and their love to music are very inspiring to me. Without them in my mind while writing it, the piece would sound different.
In fact, nobody has explicitly told me that that particular piece of music touched them deeply, or other flattery things about it. People told me that they have been touched deeply by my other pieces (some of them don't have the high esteem from their own composer!), and somehow I know that "Dead Soldiers" is not, and perhaps will never be included in "Ananda's greatest hits" in the future. So, I guess that my (musical) taste IS quite peculiar ... and again it's a proof that my taste doesn't coincide with the public's taste.

But being proud of one's particular creation brings certain problems. I always try to set my own standards both to my compositions and to my piano performances. Since finishing LIBERTAS, I felt that I would like to write another "dead soldiers", but I just can't. It's like I compare everything I wrote afterwards with my dear dead soldiers. Either I am making a bad photocopy of it, or I am trying to make something completely different, but nothing has satisfied me as much as that moment when I finished writing the Dead Soldiers. So, I think I'll have to forget it completely for the time being ... which will be difficult because it (with its companions that formed the whole LIBERTAS cantata) will be performed again at the Jakarta New Year Concert on the 3rd of January. And I will be involved, deeply, in its performance. So I'll just have to live with those young dead soldiers, just as the poignant text of Archibald MacLeish's poem :"They have a silence that speaks for them at night." And their silence, my friends, speak louder than the loudest screams.

Mourning becomes Indonesia

Just a couple of hours ago I landed at the Jakarta airport, picked up by Chendra. His first words were :"Rendra just passed away". WS Rendra was one of Indonesia's greatest poets, and a personal friend of mine. I have set a poem of him, "Tidurlah Intan" which you can listen to Aning Katamsi singing it at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgrT3CCdbYo .

In 5 days, Joseph Kristanto will be the soloist together with ITB Choir and a small ensemble, all conducted by Indra Listiyanto in my newest work, my second cantata "LIBERTAS". It is now that I realize and understand the meaning and existence of this work.

When I was commissioned to write a piece to celebrate this year's Indonesian Independence day, I knew that I should have written a joyful, optimistic and celebrational work. After all, the occasion demands it, with the presence of Indonesia's president, vice president and many of our cabinet ministers. Instead, the piece turned out to be a cantata glorifying death. I was about to change the title into "Requiem" if it were not for my consideration that I didn't have any more time left to write the commissioned piece, a real "LIBERTAS". Apart from the poems which were specifically written for the occasion and included in Libertas (by Sapardi Djoko Damono & Ilham Malayu), all the poems I chose for LIBERTAS are about death. Death of all the fallen heroes, and one of them is by WS Rendra, "Ia Telah Pergi" (He has gone). But that was not the real coincidence. Another poem is "A Un Poeta Muerto" (To a dead poet) by Spanish writer Luis Cernuda, written as a requiem to the death of Federico Garcia Lorca. And this is the point I wanna make : The most crucial point in LIBERTAS doesn't lie in the most exuberant fortissimo or exciting moment in the piece. It lies in this number, where a pianissimo, etherial B-flat major chord starts the phrase "Para el poeta, la muerte es la victoria" (For the poet, death is the victory), after a long section of dark atonal utterances. I remember exactly that LIBERTAS in fact started when I read those lines by Cernuda. They trigger those chords in my head, from which LIBERTAS was born.

I certainly wasn't thinking of Rendra when I wrote LIBERTAS. In fact, the 3 big works this year (the other two are the opera "IBU--yang anaknya diculik itu" and a dance piece to be choreographed by Chendra next year which I will write about it in a few weeks in this blog) all deal profoundly, and exclusively with death. You can also check an entry I wrote here when I was deeply immersed in this definitely-not-my-favorite-at-all subject.

I can't help but dedicating LIBERTAS, in its entirity, to the memory of WS Rendra. LIBERTAS is so him. So Rendra. Sadly, it turned out that way, as I am assimilating it while I am writing these very lines.

And now, fellow Indonesians, you can shout your favorite word "Victory!" to Rendra. Because for the dead poet, death is victory.

Requiescat et libertas, WS Rendra. Your art will live forever.

From A to A (that makes us the A-team, eh?)

If one wants it, then it's done. Among my busy periods recording for the film "Romeo*Juliet" as well as rehearsing & preparing for the "Prelude" concerts for the New Year Concerts, I managed to write 4 short pieces : one choral work commissioned by ITB Choir to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of their prestigious university, and 3 songs for baritone & piano. The ITB Choral work is a festive one, based on Sapardi Djoko Damono's breathtaking & majestic sonnet (also commissioned for this event) called KITA CIPTAKAN KEMERDEKAAN (We Create Freedom). Its sketches were done on the plane from Bilbao to Jakarta and Jakarta-Surabaya-Jakarta in the last days of last month, and then it was written out completely and finished 7 days ago on Chendra's computer whose Sibelius program had gone mad. Until this minute I still haven't heard one note of that music, which will be the explanation if suddenly one or more chords would sound "avant-gardish".

The three songs for baritone & piano were done on Friday and Saturday 12th and 13th, between two concerts of mine. I wrote them for my good friend, the always F-word (I mean fabulous & fantastic) singer Joseph Kristanto "Akis" who celebrated his 39th birthday on the 15th. To those 3 songs I added 2 more older songs, one written in London during one of my stays with Chendra last spring when one day suddenly it snowed, and another piece already written for Akis one day after we rehearsed. So, this new cycle for baritone & piano is called "A untuk Akis, Alam dan Angkasa" (translated (in-)correctly it will be : A for Akis, nature and the universe). The songs are :

1. Kesetiaan Pohon (Sapardi Djoko Damono)
2. Masa Kecil di Pegunungan (Eka Budianta)
3. Salju di Musim Semi (Chendra Panatan)
4. Selokan (Sapardi Djoko Damono)
5. Berkicaulah Burungku (Eka Budianta)

I am always touched how Akis loves nature. Apart from his love and dedication to music, of course. He always thinks of his fish, and once we rehearsed at the Jakarta Conservatory and he pointed out a peculiar tree which had been there, unnoticed by me, during these years. And this is a guy who lives right in the middle of Jakarta, the most unfriendly city in the world, full of bricks, mortars ... and greedy corruptors. So, what other birthday present is more appropiate than a songcycle about nature ?
And I am so grateful to his dedication to my music ; he practically has sung, beautifully, 90% of my music for baritone ( I wish he would sing the 10% of the rest), and memorized them (no matter how strange they are) . These 5 songs is my gratitude and my celebration to his artistry and to our friendship that I highly cherish.

PS : Thanks to Akis' sister Ita for her help in its "special delivery" after lots of hassle with the printer. And another PS : just 1 day before his birthday, his fish whom I baptized under the name Nijinsky died. Requiescat in pace ...

Romeo*Juliet

So I keep my promise ! Rather late .. but hey ...

Who would have guessed that my first music for the film would be for a film about football ? I was baffled when the Indonesian film director Andibachtiar Yusuf approached me earlier this year to ask me to score the music for his "Romeo*Juliet". Yes, you got it right. But instead of Montague and Capulet, it is the Jakarta against the Bandung football fanclubs. The confrontation between them goes back to many decades, and when it happens, they are notorious for being violent. People got killed during their fights. So, you can guess how the story goes ...

... which reminds me, inevitably, of WestSide Story. It IS difficult not to have that masterpiece as a reference ! But Yusuf's film is not a musical film, so my job is a bit easier. Oh, I forgot to tell you that he wanted me and only me for this job, because of his huge crush on my duet from the cantata Ars Amatoria "Dalam Doaku" (In my Prayer). Definitely that song became an important part of the film ; in fact, the film revolved around that song. Yusuf was (is, and always will be) a great fan of rock music, and he has never fancied any kind of classical (read : soft, boring) music. But I am dubiously flattered when he discovered through my music that classical music is not that bad! Something is definitely very wrong with my music, or ... ?
For the film, I used other songs ("Kasih" and "Ketika Kau Entah Dimana", which happens to be my favorite amongst my songs) of mine, recently released in the CD "Ananda Sukarlan Vocal Works" for that film as well, besides writing quite a lot of new materials purely instrumental. So you can hear the voices of Bernadeta Astari and Joseph Kristanto in that film once in a while blasting from the cinema loudspeakers. The motifs I use for the whole soundtrack are taken from the hymn of both football clubs, and I just make some variations out of them, according to the situation which it accompanies.

This version of Romeo*Juliet is very Indonesian. I mean, the unromantic oriental type of love. Passionate, but unromantic. There is even no balcony scene in the whole film! I was quite confused when I read the script, but when I received the rough cut of the film, I honestly was pretty impressed. And I was quite inspired after I watched the rough cut. I decided that I don't have to escape from my musical style ; the film is very, very Indonesian in many ways, so that my "western" musical style would just compliment it without "stealing the show" as they say. As Aaron Copland said about writing music for films : "The best film music is the one you don't notice". In other words, you can hear it, but you don't listen to it.

The film is due to be shown in cinemas 21 throughout Indonesia starting late March 2009.

I, too, have a dream

Next week, a new CD of my works for voice(s) is gonna be released. I am so happy and honoured to have the soprano Bernadeta Astari "Deta" and the baritone Joseph Kristanto "Akis" record my vocal works. Apart from the fact that they are the two singers who have specialized in almost all my music involving the human voice and have worked with me intensely in performing them, they are magnificent musicians with impeccable techical abilities, sensitive artistry and profound musical understanding.

My interest in the human voice dated back in the 1980s when I heard Benjamin Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings during my student years. That was the first vocal work that has made me weep, literally weep, during its performance. Since then, I started my collection of all Peter Pears' recording of Britten's whole ouvres, so my first vocal works were just bad copies of Britten and justly enough they all ended up in my dustbin. In the 1990s, it was the poetry of Walt Whitman, William Blake and Longfellow that have helped me find my own path. Still, I was feeling uneasy for not being able to feel at home in setting words of my own language. Ilham Malayu's poems during his stay in Bangkok prison were the first poems in Indonesian that I set to music, but it wasn't until very recently that I had a huge crush with the poetry of Sapardi Djoko Damono. And then came along other great Indonesian poets : Goenawan Mohamad, Eka Budianta, Hasan Aspahani, Nirwan Dewanto, Ook Nugroho and so on. Ah, and that fascinating miniaturist lady, Medy Loekito. And with my inspirational singer friends around, my Indonesian songs just came along and took shape naturally. I feel that my best music ("best" is according to my, and only mine, not other people's standard) are written inspired by people or their artistry.

I have a dream (this is not because of Obama reminding the famous phrase of MLK), that one day Indonesia will have virtuosi of all instruments, so that they would and could inspire me to write concertos for each of them : a violin concerto, clarinet concerto, up to ... bassoon concerto, harp concerto, tuba concerto and --why not?-- a percussion concerto. And yeah, my next Concerto for piano and orchestra should not be written for myself. There are many, many highly talented young Indonesian pianists around. They will prevail. And very soon.

I Sit and Look Out, con molto tristezza

During these days post-Ananda Sukarlan Award, I had nice times hangin' around with many of the winners and finalists. Most of them are teenagers, with their dreams to follow, and most of them just had experienced their first love – or first break up. Anyway, I enjoyed immensely being around those young people. You can see love in their faces, in their eyes, in their mirada ; and it brings back memories – and therefore, inspiration !

Back to the present, or not so distant past. Sometime around 2004, lying in bed of a hotel room somewhere in Italy I watched on TV the re-election of George W. Bush, coincidentally with Walt Whitman poems with me in bed. I remember my feeling depressed, affirming to myself that WE choose our destiny, which sometimes means our destruction. D’you know, by the way, that most of the Jews voted for Hitler back in the 30s ?
Well, history repeats itself. And Bush continued his massive destruction : killing millions in Iraq and everywhere else, legalizing tortures, drowning the world economy etc etc. What Whitman wrote in his dark poem “I Sit and Look Out” is not so different than the situation during this first decade of our millennium. That horrible news on TV had triggered most of the notes and chords in my song. But then I had to head back home, and it remained unfinished – and forgotten …

...Until a few weeks ago. My friends, Bernadeta Astari “Deta”, Joseph Kristanto “Akis” and myself (well, no need to mention a nickname for this latter) talked about recording my songs. They are, in fact, new friends of mine. I met Deta just about 3 or 4 years ago, and Akis even more recently, through a common friend the conductor Tommy Prabowo whom I knew since I was a teenager (both Tommy and Akis will be involved in my opera "Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami"). Since then, those two have inspired me a lot, both as great musicians and as wonderful, humble, down-to-earth humans they are. I wish all those "superstars" around us would possess their technique, sensitivity and artistry !
At last, 24 from about 70 of my songs will be in that first CD. Now with the hope of Barack Obama for the next president I suddenly remembered my poor Whitman song, and thinking of Deta’s voice that has always, and will always inspire me, I looked for it among the heap of my manuscripts … and finished it. And we’ve recorded it in Jakarta a few days ago. So, it will be the only song in English in that CD. The rest is all my Indonesian songs … well, I’ll tell you later the titles. So, that 4-minute lament is doubly dedicated to Deta, and to myself looking forward to the end of GWB’s pestilence and tyranny. Still four months to go !

Here’s the complete poem of Whitman's "I Sit and Look Out" :

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

Every language creates its own music

I had a really nice concert 2 days ago. Aning Katamsi and Joseph Kristanto "Akis" sang sooo well, and perhaps that's my best birthday present up till now. Nothing gives greater happiness to a composer than listening to his music so well performed. I am so grateful to those two friends.And thank you for all the emails, sms, and the attendance of 120 VVIP people in the concert ! This is an entry to respond to your answers and comments.

1. What is an Indonesian opera ? Well, this relates to the question "What is Indonesian classical music" (classical in the "western" idiom), and this kind of question was asked already about 100 years ago by the Americans, and starting about 50 years ago in countries such as Japan and Australia. Basically it was answered not by mere sentences, but by the creation of music by composers such as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Toru Takemitsu and Peter Sculthorpe. I believe that Indonesian music is simply music written by an Indonesian composer. Therefore, my music is included, even if I live already more than 20 years abroad and carrying the (heavy) influences of European music such as those of Benjamin Britten, Stravinsky or Sibelius. Or am I wrong in self-declaring my music as "Indonesian music" ? Is it not Indonesian enough ?

2. As my opera "Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami" is postponed (whew ! What a relief ! The music is completely, 100% finished, but surely with all the things happening, we won't be able to stage it in this period), we are trying to fix a date for its premiere for the beginning of 2009. Of course the singers will be the same, my brilliant friends Aning and Akis. And now that I get to know Akis' voice better (this is the first time that we worked together -- with more than satisfactorical results --), I would like to revise some parts of my opera. I wouldn't like to kill him now with all my falsetti ; I still want him to sing in all my operas (God grant me a long and prosper life) of the future !

3. Now about "Songs of the Night" (Nyanyian Malam). I will have to contradict myself saying earlier that it is written for any kind of voice, male or female, as long as they are within the register (Oh yes, I would like to stress again the fact that I usually conceive a song in its exact tonality -- perhaps due to my absolute pitch--, so I always feel uncomfortable to have my songs transposed to suit the registers of the singers. Sorry for being that fussy !). There are some songs which I couldn't imagine sung by the other kind of voice, such as :
- Tidurlah Intan, for female voice (medium - high)
- Di Depan Sebuah Lukisan, for male voice (and falsetto in the end !)
- Meninggalkan Kandang, for female voice (med-high)
- Kasih, definitely for male voice and DEFINITELY with all those dangerous falsetti for the last 2 pages ! Many thanx, Akis, for those beautiful, beautiful ones you did. I know you have worked a lot for it. My appreciation is never enough !
Apart from those songs, the rest can be sung by either male or female voice.

The next few days will be completely occupied by the Ananda Sukarlan Award, a national piano competition here in Jakarta. Chendra my manager has created a new blog containing all the infos about this event ; check it out at http://www.maestroatforty.blogspot.com . Yes, it's with the www in front, I don't know how Chendra did it. Anyway, let me use this opportunity to thank Chendra as well ; he's the person behind the scene of all those events, and I just don't understand how he managed to organize all of this. These organizing business is all Greek to me. My job is just writing all those notes, which I must admit, is 10 times easier than controlling our office with 7 people working simultaneously. I don't think I can even manage writing a 7-part fugue !

Songs of the Night (Nyanyian Malam)

I have a hunch that this new cycle of mine will consist of dozens of songs. These songs were written throughout these years, and they have one thing in common : they were all written during the darkest hours of the night, and mostly when the composer was feeling lonely and miserable in a hotel room at any corners of the world. It was always the time where everybody's asleep and that there was no internet connection in the room, so my only true friend at that time were books. And most of the time, book of poems. And somehow, music just flow from those poems, so I wrote them down. Some of them can be sung by either male or female voice, so I just indicate whether they are for high, medium or low voice. Some of them even can be transposed comfortably, well, just a few, so please try to consult me first if you wanna do it anyway.

Last week I was going through my manuscripts recovering them, since I will have the honour and opportunity of premiering them with my fantastic singer friends, Aning Katamsi the soprano and "Akis" Joseph Kristanto the baritone (photos ; I especially like Akis' photo in front of my favorite "fachada" of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. And I found Aning's photo somewhere after googling ; that's another facet of her life, being a choir conductor) in a concert to celebrate my 40th birthday at Hotel Alila on July 17th. 5 numbers of "Songs of the Night" will be premiered in this occasion, together with my other "greatest hits" such as some songs from my cantata Ars Amatoria, the song cycle Senyap Dalam Derai and some piano pieces. This concert is a birthday gift from Chendra my manager, and from Alila Hotel, and it will be preceded by a Gala Dinner. Mmmm ! And the organizer told me that I can just be myself in that concert and I can do whatever I want. I think it's quite dangerous to suggest such a thing to me ....


If you fancy coming to this event, please contact Chendra at 0818 891038 or http://ycep@yahoo.com/

My first opera : "Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami?" (Why did you kidnap our son?)

Now that I almost (just a few bars left to be orchestrated !) finish the writing of my first opera (it will be a long time before I will write my second ; I am totally exhausted and running out of notes!) , I dare to share with you more details about it. I wrote a bit about it last January, in relation to the death of our former dictator/president Suharto if you want to read more stuff.

It is based on a play by Seno Gumira Ajidarma which was done already (and had a huge success) in 2001 in Jakarta. The setting is in a living room of a married couple whose son, Satria, had been lost for a year, most presumably kidnapped during the Suharto dictatorship. Satria was a student and an activist, and it is unknown whether he is still alive or dead. For the world premiere, the father will be played by Joseph Kristanto (baritone) and the mother Aning Katamsi (soprano). Satria will come and go as both a flashback and in an imaginary situation in a torture chamber, being interrogated. Satria's role will be played by Chendra Panatan, who will also choreograph and direct the whole opera. Oh, and don't worry, he's not going to sing ! He will, however, undergo all the violent tortures (yes, it will be quite realistic, so don't bring under-age children to the opera) by two additional dancers.

In addition to the fantastic artists above, Tommy Prabowo will conduct an ensemble of 9 musicians which include : a string quartet, a woodwind trio, a keyboard and one percussionist. This opera is the result of a commission by the Indonesian Opera Society, and the world premiere will take place at Usmar Ismail Hall on a date that is easy to remember : 8 - 8 - 08, at 8 pm. That is the eighth of August this year. There will be another performance the day after.

Apart from the arias, there are some highlights from the opera that could be performed as separate numbers in the future. Those include a 4-minute string quartet when Satria is being interrogated and reaching out in futile to his parents, and a 2,5-minute bassoon solo piece "Satria Sendiri" (Satria alone) where Satria was alone in jail, frightened, blindfolded, but with a spirit that has not been broken.