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In memoriam: Jack Body's legacy of love & music
Jack Body - Duncan Graham Gamelan musician and composer Jack Body, an enthusiastic promoter of Indonesian arts, died on May 10 in his homeland, New Zealand
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Jack Body - Duncan Graham
Gamelan musician and composer Jack Body, an enthusiastic promoter of Indonesian arts, died on May 10 in his homeland, New Zealand. He was 70.
Long suffering from lung cancer, Body continued to compose. His Poems of Love and War, incorporating Javanese themes, was named best classical album at the 2014 NZ Music Awards.
Body first encountered Indonesia in the early 1970s. He graduated with a master's degree from Auckland University and studied in Cologne and at the Institute of Sonology at Utrecht on a fellowship.
He took the long way home, wandering through Europe and Southeast Asia with his mind and microphone open. The last stop was Indonesia.
'I was an innocent abroad and I knew next to nothing about the country,' he told The Jakarta Post seven years ago. At the time he'd just returned from two visits to Yogyakarta to record the palace guards playing at the kraton.
'In Indonesia I started recording the sounds I heard the way other people take photographs of their travels,' he said.
'I followed my ears. I recorded birds, animals, street sounds, music. I was fascinated by the fantastic richness of the culture. I liked the way people took things easily. They couldn't be bothered to get hot and bothered.'
He taught at the Akademi Musik Indonesia, now the Indonesian Arts Institute, in Yogyakarta for two years, before leaving for the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, where he was an associate professor.
His compositions covered all genres, from chamber music through to themes for television soap operas.
Two years ago he accompanied the school's gamelan orchestra for a tour of Bali and Java, performing to a full house at the Yogya Gamelan Festival.
A few days before Body's death, he was awarded the Arts Foundation of New Zealand's Icon Award Whakamana Hiranga, limited to a living circle of just 20 artists.
At the presentation in a Wellington hospice, the Foundation said Jack was a prolific world-class composer with a global reach: 'The impact of his artistic life on NZ is profound. Jack has given so much to audiences, local and international composers, musicians and students.'
Body's works have been performed in the US and The Netherlands and he was a widely exhibited photographer. His specialty was cross-cultural compositions and experimental electro-acoustics.
In all his pursuits, he set out to embed the music of Asia ' and Indonesia in particular- in multicultural New Zealand, where he was awarded the nation's Order of Merit.
Body assembled a Javanese gamelan for his university named Padhang Moncar. Tien Soeharto is believed to have donated the instruments. The School also has a Balinese gamelan, Taniwha Jaya.
He organized residencies in Wellington for Indonesian artists including Agus Supriawan and Dody Ekagustdiman from West Java, Rafiloza bin Rafii from Minangkabau and Wayan Yudane from Bali.
Wayan said his friend was at the center of the music community because of his lifelong support for young composers. 'Jack would never isolate himself as a composer but was really open to finding something new, finding a friend and putting it all together in a way that everything and everyone was given equal value. He had a great warmth and heart for Indonesia.'
Budi Putra, who directs the Javanese gamelan and is also on the local staff of the Indonesian embassy expressed a similar sentiment. 'Although Jack was a great artist he never boasted of his achievements. He taught, he motivated, he worked tirelessly. He inspired. He was always just 'Jack'.'
He continues: 'We will continue to develop the gamelan as he wished and play at his funeral.'
Composer Michael Asmara said he was inspired to set up the Contemporary Music Festival in Yogyakarta after being introduced to a NZ composers' workshop by Body.
'Yogya was his second home,' Asmara said. 'The way he spoke and acted was very halus [refined], and sometimes going round and round. He looked so excited when he played. His patterns and forms, rhythms and tempo were inspired by Indonesia, but he also introduced other ideas.
'His music will never die.'
Body is survived by his long-time partner, linguist Yono Soekarno, originally from Bandar Lampung in Sumatra.
