JP/Multa Fidrus

The recent Jakarta International Summer Music Festival offered more than just the diverse assembly of outstanding young musicians, music teachers and visiting international artists that it was expecting to present.

The two-week event also reflected a significant transformation in the students of Jakarta Musical School (SMJ).

"What impressed me and made me proud to be part of the festival was that quiet students became talkative and those who where initially shy and scared appeared to become more self confident throughout the festival," pianist Kuei Pin Yeo told The Jakarta Post in an interview at SMJ campus, Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD) satellite city.

Yeo, a music director and initiator of the June 21 to July 5 festival, said she wanted to provide talented young musicians with an opportunity to learn from noted musicians and teachers from other countries.

The school invited Andrew Massey and Lisa Laskowich from the U.S., Pamela Wedgwood from the UK, Arten Konstantinov and Gleb Dontzov from Russia, Ichiro Kato from Japan, Leanne Nicholls from Australia and Olivia Skwara from Poland to the event.

Yeo's husband, Indonesian strings director Jap Tji Kien, also took part in the festival.

Participants were involved in intensive but enjoyable musical activities comprising individual lessons, master classes, workshops, chamber music sessions, theater workshops, improvisation, choir practice, music appreciation, concerts and orchestral activities.

SMJ, which now has four learning centers in addition to its main campus (in BSD), is managed by the Jakarta Music Foundation which was also established by Yeo in 1983.

As a dedicated educator who has made it her mission to bring world-class music education to Indonesia, Yeo also established the International Music Conservatory of Indonesia earlier this year.

Yeo is committed to producing high-quality young musicians who are well trained in performance and skills.

"This is the dedication I want to give back to the country where I was born, grew up and will spend the rest of my life," Yeo said, adding that she thanked God for the balance she has enjoyed between developing musical education in Indonesia and performing on international stages.

Yeo, who was born in Jakarta in 1954, said her mother played an integral role in supporting her musical talent and disciplined practice.

Being the only girl in a family of four children, Yeo's parents supported her love of music both in her decision to use music as a platform to realize her dreams, and in her duties as a musician and educator.

"I clearly remember when I was five years old, my parents bought a used piano for me and I began to practice seriously when I turned seven," said Yeo who had once aspired to become a civil engineer.

Yeo's parents encouraged her to achieve the highest possible marks throughout her schooling, and after graduating from high school she registered as a technical engineering student at Trisakti University.

A few months later, however, Yeo left Trisakti after being offered a scholarship at Manhattan University in New York.

Yeo, who speaks fluent Mandarin and English, studied for nine years in the United States and became the first Indonesian citizen to obtain a doctorate in music (piano performance).

Her concerts have drawn praise in Europe, America and across Asia. The New York Times, on the occasion of her Carnegie Hall recital debut, hailed her as both a polished technician and responsive musician, and praised her for her elegantly detailed, immaculate and musically direct interpretation.

According to Yeo, the future of classical music had good prospects in Indonesia because the mindset of most Indonesian people had "begun to shift".

"Most parents used to insist on their children studying subjects which the parents wanted, but now many parents have begun to understand and even support their children's choice to study based on their own talents.

"I hope Indonesia can develop its standard of music so we can be proud of the country's musical achievements, and one day have a good orchestra like those in developed countries," Yeo said.

A good orchestra cannot not survive without government attention, since orchestras require a permanent venue for practice sessions and concerts, Yeo said, adding orchestras also need spectators.

"To provide a permanent building for practice, to hold concerts in and to help familiarize people with classical music is the responsibility of the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

"I am very concerned because skyscrapers continue to grow in the capital but a concert hall has yet to be built," she said.

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