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Andi Rianto: Work The Talent Hard
Andi Rianto
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Andi Rianto. JP/Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak
Music composer Andi Rianto is among the few child prodigies who haven't lost their touch of wonder growing up.
'I always knew I'd become a musician. I have never reconsidered it since I was five,' he said.
Andi, the leader and conductor of the Magenta Orchestra, which recently staged its 10th anniversary concert, started playing the piano at the tender age of four.
His elder brother, who started learning the piano first with a private teacher at home, felt dejected by Andi's skill although the younger boy only took lessons for a month. After watching the lessons for the previous six months, the brother switched to the guitar.
'We're on good terms. He's the guitarist in my orchestra,' he said.
Andi recalls the North Sulawesi folk song 'O Ina Ni Keke' as the first song he played on the piano when he was five.
He remembered watching a TV show when a kid was asked what he wanted to be in the future. 'I've never shared this with anyone, but at that time I said: 'A musician, of course'.'
Andi says that talent alone is not enough to survive in the industry.
'Hard work and discipline are necessities,' he said. 'We can learn music from anywhere; it doesn't have to be at school, but to become a musician we should never stop learning.'
Born in Sorong, Papua, on May 7, 1972, Andi is the youngest of three brothers. His father, Mohamad Rosjaad was a banker who frequently relocated the family on his tours of duty.
The family was close to music ' his mother used to play contrabass during her youth ' and often held concerts in their living room.
They moved to Surabaya when Andi was eight, where his father bought him his first Yamaha electone organ and received a three-month free course at Yamaha Musik Indonesia.
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His mentor at that time was musician and producer Tamam Husein and at the same time Andi took a private classical piano course with Barbara Sitinjak.
He was 11 years old when his talent was discovered by the late composer Yazeed Soelaiman Djamin who taught him to write music scores and compositions.
Around that time he was a performer in the Yamaha Musik Indonesia ' Junior Original Concert for children under 16, which was held every year in Jakarta and also in Japan in 1986.
Other performers who became his friends were Yani Danuwijaya, the keyboardist of Indonesia 6, and Stephen Kurniawan Tamadji, a pianist who is more popularly known as a member of Warna vocal group.
In 1987, Andi was selected to perform at the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations headquarters in a special concert for UNICEF where he invited Stephen and Yani to perform his self-composed 'Phinisi Nusantara'.
In the same year, he was invited by Yamaha to perform at the 100th anniversary event of the institution in Tokyo.
The family moved to Medan, North Sumatra after his exposure to the world.
He became the top student in the province after passing a series of academic proficiency tests and the fourth at national level in 1988.
The next year the family relocated again to Jakarta as his father was preparing to move to the bank's New York representative office.
During his short stay in Jakarta he performed in a concert for the opening of the Jakarta Playhouse.
He graduated from Forest Hills High School in one-and-a-half years by taking both summer and night schools and continued his studies at Berklee College of Music, majoring in film scoring.
'I fell in love with film scores after I heard the soundtrack of ET. Om Yazeed, who was like a father to me, also had a vast collection of original film scores,' he said.
Andi said that because Yazeed at that time resided in Jakarta, he usually flew back and forth from Surabaya or Medan to Jakarta for music lessons and even helped him to teach music composition to children in the capital.
Upon his return to Jakarta he was introduced to music arranger and producer Dorie Kalmas who at that time was arranging 'Bahasa Kalbu', a popular song sung by Titi DJ.
'He asked my help to complete the missing part of the song and I did it in minutes,' said Andi, adding that it was the start of his career in the country's entertainment industry.
'I am always thankful that I have had the right people to be friends with,' he added.
The rest is history. He composed scores for TV dramas and movies and arranged the music for singers, such as Rita Effendy, Bebi Romeo and Ari Lasso.
In later years he became more involved in orchestra, both live and on TV, and was offered the lead of the Magenta Orchestra, a sister of the classical Twilite Orchestra led by Addie MS.
With Magenta, Andi showed his talent for rearranging pop songs into high-quality music.
'It's a shame that currently no TV station has a music-ensemble program. A program like that would actually be an educational tool for the public to learn about good quality music.'
Through the orchestra Andi has channeled his ambition to catapult young talent, showcasing them during concerts and holding music clinics in different cities.
'It's in my dream to establish a formal music academy. It would be my contribution to developing musical talent in the country.'
