| Father
of Indonesian contemporary classical music Slamet Sjukur speaks
candidly about Tari Pendet and life in general.
 Malaysians
(or at least some Malaysians) may hold the view that our great
nation is superior to our neighbour, and possible ancestor,
across the Straits, but one only has to look at the music scene
to know that this couldn't be further from the sad truth. I
am not talking about Gamelan, because to do so would only bring
further embarrassment to ourselves, but of the contemporary
classical music scene. While we were still struggling with putting
joget and keronchong into orchestral dress, one Indonesian pioneer
was already making the archipelago known amongst the ranks of
the Paris avant-garde in the 70s.
Slamet A Sjukur is generally considered the father of contemporary
Indonesian music. Born in Surabaya in 1935, Sjukur studied music
at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de
Paris with distinguished composers like Olivier Messiaen and
Henri Dutilleux. A leading figure in the promotion of new music
in Indonesia, Sjukur founded the Asosiasi Komponis Indonesia
in 1994 and taught many of the important new generation composers
like Tony Prabowo and Otto Siddharta.
Meeting Sjukur by the roadside waiting for a bus that had already
left, my first encounter with the man during the Asia Pacific
Festival 07 in Wellington was one of high adventure. He was
dressed more for safari than an evening of high art, and I found
myself bundled into a car along with his student Otto Siddharta
and a nice fellow from the Indonesian embassy who had offered
to rescue us, as we sped along the hills of the city looking
for the concert venue, me with a map and Sjukur looking for
landmarks, arriving at the concert like participants from The
Amazing Race Asia. Although we were the last to arrive, we were
not sent home.
Slamet Sjukur's The Source
performed at KLCMF 09
In November this year Sjukur will make presentations at the
Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival 09. Aware of the recent
acrimony between our countries over the case of stolen tunes
and dances that started some time back with Rasa Sayang Eh (it's
from Maluku), then the recent Tari Pendet advertisement (it's
from Bali) and even Terang Bulan (it's from Seychelles and Indonesian
bangsawan) for which us artists have received numerous hate
mails from our Nusantara counterparts, I contacted Sjukur fully
prepared for verbal abuse.
Aside from the sad fact that, while the ad agency was eventually
blamed for the Tari Pendet incident, none of the folks in the
Ministry could tell the difference between Balinese costumes
and Malay ones, I had to admit our Government has never been
known for great originality anyway.
Seeing the opportunity to clear the air with at least one sympathetic
comrade across the Java Sea, I braced myself. What I got instead
was his usual charming warmth, requesting me not to address
him with "Pak" but "Mas".
OTE: Mas Slamet, what do you make of the recent spat over
Malaysia's shameless plagiarism of Indonesian art?
Slamet Sjukur: I know of these of regrettable events, and am
really sad that such kinds of things continue to exist in the
civilised world. But I have also particular opinions about government.
They do not always represent the people.
That is why, for example, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said
created the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999, to bring together
young musicians from across the political divide in the Middle
East. I also have a strong belief that the horrible George W
Bush is not the voice of America.
I am for democracy, but reserved concerning the value of majority.
History has taught us that there were, and still are, more bandits
than prophets.
OTE: What is it like being a composer in Indonesia?
Being a composer in Indonesia is amusing; no one cares about
his living or his usefulness. He is free to be a prophet or
a bandit.
OTE: Going back a little, what was your experience in Europe
like in those early years, for example meeting with the great
Olivier Messiaen?
My meeting with Messiaen was just by chance. The French government
who gave me the scholarship arranged it, and I was rather sad
because [at the time] I did not know who he was, and my intention
was studying composition not analysis. I came from the 3rd World
and knew nothing about what European musical life really was.
I did admire Messiaen only later. The way he saw Wagner's "The
Valkyrie" and his analysis of Debussy's "Pelleas et
Melisande" were revelations. And every Sunday I came to
church Trinite, not for praying (I am a believer but not of
any particular religion) but to listen attentively to the profound
beauty of his improvisation on the pipe organ.
I studied composition with Dutilleux, another personality who
is as humane as Messiaen. But it really was my piano teacher
Jules Gentil who found me a way to study six years for free
at Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris after my one year official
scholarship at Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de
Paris.
It was most exciting for me when I was accepted in GRM (Groupe
de Recherches Musicales) led by Pierre Schaeffer at ORTF, the
French radio and television station [GRM was an experimental
music establishment that featured composers like Stockhausen,
Boulez, Xenakis and Varese]. There I found a completely new
world of sound and there I met many composers, including [Russian
composer] Ivan Wyschnegradsky with whom I felt very close. And
one of my most unforgettable experiences was when I conducted
my own piece commissioned by the Biennale de Paris 1969.
OTE: How do you reconcile your essentially Asian nature
with a European tradition in music learning?
I was and still am too lazy to think that there is problem
of reconciling East and West. I know the differences but I have
an ability to appreciate both. My primary school education (very
nationalistic against the Dutch, but not chauvinistic) has prepared
me to be so, and my experience with GRM affirmed my attitude.
OTE: What are you involved in now in Indonesia?
I teach composition privately, at Sekolah Musik Kilang in Surabaya
and in the postgraduate program of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
in Bandung. I also organise monthly seminars in Surabaya to
stimulate the public's appreciation of music, for example in
listening, discussing and analysing many kinds of music.
Aside from composing, I am also member of the Akademi Jakarta,
the institution that thinks about and exposes issues that have
public interest, like how to solve the problem of noise pollution.
OTE: What are the challenges for new music in Indonesia and
in South East Asia?
The situation is slowly changing, beginning some 30 years ago.
There is progress and no one can stop it anyhow. But it is not
a thing to take for granted neither. The efforts are necessary,
as for many other things. There are problems of lack of information,
and limited opportunities to have direct contact with music
itself.
OTE: Composing is such a solitary business, why do you do
it?
All my life I had liked to spread a world without noise, music
as beautiful 'viruses,' which people ignore anyway. When most
musicians dream of 'going international' or being 'recognised',
I talk to my surrounding colleagues of how to feel time deeply
within ourselves, and the importance of timing, that music is
not a profession, but rather a belief system.
OTE: Do people really need composers?
As long as the people's sensibility is poor, they need composers.
We the composers are here because we try to show them the intelligent
awareness to nearly everything, especially whatever that is
audible. One day when people have found music in everything,
then no composer will be necessary.
Off The Edge, October 2009
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