Ananda's New Year concert

Carla Bianpoen ,  Contributor ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 01/02/2009 10:29 AM  |  Potpourri

ANANDA SUKARLAN (Courtesy of Ananda Sukarlan)

The country's composer and master pianist Ananda Sukarlan is again coming to town to entertain the capital's music lovers with his New Year's Concert.

Ananda will perform at Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki art center in Central Jakarta on Jan. 4, accompanied by other branches of the arts.

As usual, his compositions include inspirations from his homeland's tones and cultural elements.

This time the maestro unites the piano not only with poetry and dance but also with painting and politics -- all to welcome the New Year, to commemorate 200 years of Joseph Haydn and last but certainly not least, to celebrate the end of the Bush regime.

The repertoire includes songs and piano pieces inspired by the work of Indonesian poets Sapardi Djoko Damono, Eka Budianta, Hasan Aspahani, Medy Loekito and Ook Nugroho, as well as by paintings by the high renaissance artist Titian and Indonesian artist Asep Berlian.

In addition, there will be two dance performances choreographed by Chendra Panatan, who is also a dancer of renown.

Commemorating Haydn, one of the most prominent composers of the classical period, Ananda will perform his own composition -- a short piece titled Haydn Seek -- and one written by Maurice Ravel, titled Minuet sur le nom de Haydn.

The evening's repertoire also includes Schumann Psychosis -- which was written for three pianos -- played by six pianists and accompanied by a dance performance choreographed by Chendra Panatan.

The piece was heavily inspired by the dissociate identity disorder which had caused multiple personalities in Robert Schumann, the German composer known for his works for piano, chamber music, orchestra and Lieder.

Ananda said he had been inspired by Schumann's multiple personalities and had begun to write the piece, but it was only when he saw the similarity of themes in the painting Dua Jiwa (Two Souls) by Asep Berlian, that he hurried to finish it.

Another painting-inspired piece is called Rescuing Ariadne. Ananda had seen Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, which is featured in the National Gallery of London.

Titian, the leading painter of the 16th century Venetian School of the Italian Renaissance, depicts Baccus the god of wine leaping from his chariot in his first encounter with Ariadne, princess of Crete, at a time when she had just been abandoned by her lover Theseus on the island of Naxos.

The story goes that Bacchus took her for marriage and she became an immortal princess.

Ananda was struck by the beauty of the painting and the story it represented. It evoked within him the desire to create this piece, composed for flute and the piano.

A unique piece in the evening's repertoire is Ananda's latest composition marked by the sound of Balinese gamelan, which he will play himself.

The Humiliation of Drupadi is based on an episode in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, featuring the vanity of male power: Yudistira, the king of Hastinapura is an avid gambler and does not hesitate to gamble on his possessions -- including his queen, Drupadi.

Because Yudistria loses, Drupadi falls victim to his contester, who in euphoric victory attempts to strip her, trying to pull off the kain (traditional cloth) that was wrapped around her waist.

However, the gods came to her rescue: The kain becoming never-ending. Drupadi is accompanied by a dance piece choreographed by Chendra Panatan.

Reflecting on the Bush regime, Ananda takes the poetry of one of the greatest of the U.S. poets, Walt Whitman, titled, "I Sit and Look out", a lament on seeing all the wrongdoings in the world but not doing anything about them.

"All the meanness and agony without end/I sitting, lookout upon/See, hear, and am silent."

Besides Ananda himself, winners of the Ananda Sukarlan Award will be performing during the evening.

There will also be special appearances by Elizabeth Ashford (flute) and Alfred Young Sugiri (piano), as well as baritone Joseph Kristanto "Akis" and soprano Bernadeta Astari.

i-box:

Ananda Sukarlan New Year's Concert
Jan. 4, 2008
Graha Bhakti Budaya, TIM
Jl. Cikini Raya, Central Jakarta
For more info, call 0818 89 1038

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