And the winner (and loser) goes to.....

God, I can tell you one thing about writing an opera : it is an E-N-D-L-E-S-S task . It reminds me of the saying (I think it was by Woody Allen) : When you embark on a big project, you have the enthusiasm of making the greatest thing in the world. When you are deep inside it, the only thing in your mind is f***ing finishing it ! But things are taking shape, and I should not complain.

Anyway, I watched the Academy Award ceremony last week, and there were three things I would like to remember :

First of all, all of us involved in the arts in Spain would like to congratulate Javier Bardem as the first Spanish actor awarded an Oscar. We are all proud of our colleague, and the achievement of ANY artist means a boost for the whole culture and arts industry of the country, which means, all of us. At the end, we all win. I wish Indonesia's classical music world would realize that someday, and stop stabbing each other (especially at those considered "successful") from the back ...

Though being correct in awarding the Best Supporting Actor to Javier who I personally think really deserves it, being rather cynical, the Academy failed in giving one award to the Best SupportED actress. It should go to Senator Hillary Clinton, who, just for the last 3 weeks has played ALL the roles quite convincingly. She changed characters all the time !!! The only role she hasn't played is herself, but being oneself doesn't count to be nominated for Oscars (neither for being a good politician).

And the third thing, which I really regret about the Oscar night was that they excluded Brad Renfro in their obituaries. BR died of heroin overdose last January, and one can perceive that Hollywood wants to disavow all knowledge of his death. He was (and still is) my favorite Hollywood actor, incredibly talented but being in the wrong place at the wrong time (is there any right time for Hollywood?) he became the tragic victim of this "artistic" world. Your artistic legacy will always be remembered, Brad. Requiem aeternam.

Desperate housewife

Oh, dear ! Why this sudden change of tone against Obama ? She's being hysterical !! Hey, senator Clinton, please remember : There ain't no secret for success, but there is ONE sure formula for failure : Trying to please everybody .
Unfortunately, we all take credit for all that we have done ....

And needless to say, Barack Obama is the first politician who could make me believe that YES, a politician could be someone who has morals and beliefs besides power and money . He won't have an easy job, resuscitating the United States after having the worst president in its history .

And ... he has a nice baritone voice ...

"It takes a thief"

(a non-musical note about Rapsodia Nusantara no. 1)

For you who were born after 1980, you won't understand the title. It's the title of my favorite TV series starring Robert Wagner.

Now, so many of you young pianists who are playing my newest piano piece have asked "on which folksong did I base my Rapsodia Nusantara no. 1? Is it Jali-Jali ? Or Kicir-Kicir?" . The answer is : both . And my answer is "no" to the other frequently asked question "Do you use other themes beside those two folk-melodies?"

Now, you can read my previous entry about my choral piece "Jokpiniana" and hopefully it could help you understand my compositional method. You might also like to google "cubism" and see how it works in painting, because that's exactly what I am doing in many of my pieces. Picasso (and other cubist painters) always needed a model for his painting, and then they distorted the model. Well, now you get it, right ? I took those two folksongs, and I mixed them, distorted them, 'make them my own' so to say. "Good composers don't borrow, they steal", thus spake the great Stravinsky. I don't know if I am good, but I know that I steal.

So don't worry if you can't really "get" the tunes. You hear them, but you don't hear them. They are there, but they aren't there. I am writing my own music, not folksong arrangements. You can even play games with your colleagues, because sometimes I turn the original folk-tune upside down, and also reverse it : if you play a melody which doesn't really sound like the folksongs above, try to read it from right to left, perhaps you'd recognize it.

The Voice Inside me (can now be found in this book)

This was published last month, but I just got the photo of the cover a few days ago by email. It's the score of 25 vocal works by me, based on Indonesian poems by Goenawan Mohamad, Chendra Panatan, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Joko Pinurbo and Ilham Malayu. You can order it through Chendra my manager (whose poems can be found in this book as well) at ycep@yahoo.com or 0818 891038 if you live in Indonesia.

Some of the songs in this book (about 80 pages or so !) can be listened to at http://www.youtube.com/ ; search under my name Ananda Sukarlan. All songs are with piano accompaniment (except two solo vocal pieces), and are for soprano, tenor and baritone solo and duets . It includes the song-cycles "Senyap Dalam Derai" (soprano & piano), "Gemuruhnya Malam" (baritone and piano), Canda Empat Penjuru (baritone & piano) as well as individual songs such as "my Aids song" Dalam Sakit for tenor & piano. All those beautiful poems are printed in the first few pages, and there are some program notes by me as well (mostly taken from this blog).

Lots of blogging today, eh ? Ok, ok ... back to writing my opera ...

More on Jokpiniana and its influences

ITB (the commissioner of my last choir piece, see my entry below) has asked me for more details of the work I just made for them. All I can say is that certainly it couldn't have existed without my fascination for cubism, which once in a while "appeared" in my works. What I did was, perhaps, translating the visual creative process of Picasso to music, therefore changing the concept "space" into "time". Living in Spain, I can't help admiring Picasso every day !

In "Jokpiniana", the way I use the motifs is by experimenting with its distortion, just what Picasso did with, e.g., Demoiselles d'Avignon, representing apparently solid objects as radically fragmented. This innovative approach broke down the components of the musical elements (originated from the poetic elements of Joko Pinurbo) into a number of individual facets, presenting several different aspects of one object (it could be a melody, or harmonic progression, or rhythmic pattern) from a variety of angles, simultaneously. I also juxtapose different, most of the time contrasting, moods (again, originating from several poems of contrasting moods) back to back with each other. What I want to repeat again and again, especially to those reporters and critics who always misunderstand my way of creative thinking, is that I am not just reading the poems word by word and make a melody out of it. I concentrate on the mood of the poem as a whole. Once I get the music, the words (or phrases) become (a little bit) less important. Nevertheless, I never use a phonetic element outside the poem : for example, the words "dang" and "dut" do exist IN the poem itself ! I just take it out and establish it as an independent element, treating it purely as sound and not as a word that has a meaning. I always consider a great poet as a great painter : they know how to choose the exact words for the "paint" as a material to create their picture. So, don't get me wrong : individual words are of primary importance for me in the beginning of the creative process, but they become secondary in the RESULT of the musical work. A great painting is not made with only primary colours, right ? Its greatness lies in how the painter mixes the colours, and how the result could express what he would like to communicate with the observer.

As I mentioned in the subtitle, Jokpiniana is an etude. The "real" manifestation of this technique I use in the opera I am writing now. Its duration is 70 minutes (plus break between the two acts), and I must say that this is an exciting experiment (whether it works or not, it's not really exciting ; it's terrifying for me ! That's why I keep on taking breaks from its composition, due to self-doubts, and write other short works). Its results have worked before in my pieces, so I hope it works again now !

Jokpiniana I : A reflection on dangdut

Work on my opera is going quite well. Haven't made up my mind about the dialogues & recitatives, but I have done some arias and choreographical music. I decided a few days ago to take a break from it and compose my short (4-minute) choral piece commissioned by the ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Indonesia) Choir for their tour to Italy.

The piece will be for SSAATTBB choir.For about one year I have been fascinated by the (very) short poems of Joko Pinurbo "Jokpin". You can find them (if you understand Indonesian) in http://celanasenja.blogspot.com/ . I have been toying the idea of putting several poems into one short piece, and writing for the choir has provided me the opportunity to do so. So, Jokpiniana will be a series of choir pieces, or shall we say "choir etudes", and this one for ITB will be the first of I-dunno-how-many-will-there-be etudes for choir. In this piece I concentrate especially on his fantastic poem "Dangdut" which provides me the ostinato, but I will treat it antiphonally. Dangdut is a very popular rhythm that is very close to the heart of most of Indonesians. One always say that it belongs to the low-class people, but hey, all the diplomats at the Indonesian embassies around the world always organize dangdut parties. They even have dangdut artists TO BE FLOWN FROM INDONESIA for their "cultural" events. I must say that they are more representative of Indonesian culture than, let's say, me or my colleagues of "classical music" who are pretentious enough of searching things such as "What is Indonesian classical music ? What is Indonesian opera?" and other useless soul-searching questions. Dangdut IS our identity !

Suharto is dead. So ... ?

Well, well, well, I couldn't believe that our former dictator could fall ill ... and then die. In fact, I have been thinking a lot about him, since I am writing this opera about a family who lost one of its members during Suharto's dictatorship. It has a lot to do with methods of kidnapping and torture.

But let's talk about Suharto - "The Smiling Dictator". Does this news mean that his family will now be liberated from all the charges ? I think so. It has happened before, and unfortunately it will always happen with all those "happy" dictators in every part of the world. "Live long and prosper", full of privileges, possessing absolute power (he and his entire family). Why is this ? How many people has he killed ...ooops, sorry, I mean, made disappear ? Even the magician David Copperfield couldn't compete with him. I won't speculate how many victims of Suharto there were, since I can't know it for sure (and neither did he, I suppose. He didn't even care ... or perhaps the numbers of victims were important to boost his ego ?) .

So, now not only is he f***ing rich, but his death is boosting his fame as well. He'll be the most bankable dead celebrity, after Elvis. A pity for him that all that money and wealth can't be transferred to the next world. The wealth earned with so much blood of innocent people ...

Alio Modo, new CD

Just came out ! This is my new CD with the complete piano works of David del Puerto (Spain's National Music Award 2005, Spain's most prominent composer and .... one of my best friends!). But not only that. In this CD one can listen to all his works for accordion as well, played by Spain's greatest accordionist, Angel Luis Castaño, who has brought his instrument into a higher level. Why this combination ? Well, some reasons : 1. Because David del Puerto's piano works only add up to about 35 minutes of music, so the accordion works (which add up to about 30 minutes) is a nice couple for the CD. 2 . Because there is one piece in this CD that is for piano AND accordion. "Diario" was written for us, and this is one of the very few pieces in the world that are originally written for the duo of these instruments. And from those very few, I dare to say that for me this piece is the best of all of them. Just check out how Del Puerto exploits the resources of each instruments, and how he combines them, and all those exciting rhythms ... ah, it's such a delight to play, and even more exciting to listen to !

It's in all the CD shops in Europe that sells classical music CDs (or through it's distributor, www.diverdi.com) , and in Jakarta you can find it in the 3rd floor of Alun Alun, Grand Indonesia, or just ask my manager Chendra Panatan (ycep@yahoo.com or 0818 891038) how to get it .

Does this sound like commercials ? Yes, but two things that differentiate this from other commercials. 1. I don't receive money from the sellings ( I got paid in advance !) , and 2. I do this because I am so proud of this CD. David del Puerto is Spain's valuable national asset and am also proud to have something to do with his music, especially "Alio Modo" which is now considered a masterpiece of Spanish piano music of this century.