JAKARTA: There's one thing that teen singer Gita Gutawa wants for her future music career: To work completely independently, without any help from her father.

So the 15-year-old has taken it upon herself to "fire" her father, noted music composer Erwin Gutawa, for her next album.

"Here on this second album, my father still helped me a lot," Gita said at the recent launch of her new album Harmoni Cinta (Harmony in Love). "But this will be the last time. I'm going to fire Dad, after this," she laughed.

"Firing" her dad, Gita explained, is actually a joke - what she really means is that she wants to go it alone. So far in her career, Erwin worked as producer and arranger on Gita's albums.

"I've learned a lot from dad, and I thank him a lot. But I also want to be independent and work with other musicians," she said.

"Dad agrees with me. He told me I should work more with other people so that I could learn more from them."

Already on her second album, Gita has worked with many others: She collaborated with veteran musicians Maia Estianty, Melly Goeslaw, Yovie Widianto, Dewiq and Singaporean hit maker Dick Lee.

Not only that, but Gita will also start working with seven other girls in a band, which she says still has no name. And of course, "I'm the vocalist of the band," Gita said.

Being the lead singer of a band isn't her newest position, though: Gita was just appointed as the ambassador for the Sampoerna Foundation, an organization on education.

"The foundation works with my label SonyBMG in fundraising activities," she says. "Some of the proceeds from my albums and ringback tones will be channeled to the foundation to support some educational programs." -JP

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