It was fun, funky and urgently necessary. The Indonesia Youth Concert Orchestra (IYCO) performed their very first concert under the baton of Addie MS.

The Indonesia Youth Concert Orchestra (IYCO)’s very first concert on April 23 at Balai Sarbini in Jakarta was a performance long overdue – where Jakarta’s awful traffic did not hinder people from attending, as they craved high quality; both entertaining and inspiring.

The concert was meticulously prepared and featured the enjoyable and groovy performance of an orchestra of young musicians — the youngest member only 8 years old.

The IYCO met our expectations. In their young hands, the music sounded attractive, relaxed and even sexy. The audience in Jakarta has grown in quantity and quality and that is why the capital city needs an orchestra like this.

Young Indonesian musicians who play classical music are also being produced in record numbers and their skills are incomparably higher than those (even some more senior) of the past, so they need a meeting point and a hub to develop their artistry and creativity.

The IYCO is a project by the @ID_Camp and its founder & director Dewi Atmodjo, originally called “Inspired by The Master”.

I was invited last year, supposedly to inspire dozens of pianists, and this year the “Master” goes to Indonesia’s reputable conductor, Addie MS.

Since a conductor cannot do anything without an orchestra, the IYCO was formed. The IYCO opened auditions for young instrumentalists a few months ago and the response was overwhelming, not only coming from Jakarta but from other cities – even islands.

If someone really understands the nuts and bolts of an Indonesian orchestra and its musicians, it is Addie MS. Addie is not a graduate from a foreign conservatory, which reminds me of our common idol Leonard Bernstein, but is a “local product” that has become the pride of a nation (Bernstein was the first American conductor whose musical education was exclusively formed in the USA).

Addie had successfully established his own Twilite Orchestra in 1991. He didn’t try — and he didn’t need — to implement Western methods of managing an orchestra here. Indonesian issues need to be handled through Indonesian means, and he understands that. Those issues go both ways: the producer of the music (the producers, promotors and musicians) and the consumer (the audience).

As the orchestra’s name indicates, this is a real Indonesian orchestra. Classical music, by nature, stems from a western culture, but it doesn’t mean that it should remain western all the time.

In fact, we can all see that its development is shifting to Asia, not only proven by the achievements of Asian musicians worldwide in quality and quantity, but also in the migration of many Western musicians to Asia looking for jobs.

And here begins the main issue in Indonesia. If there were two concerts at the same time by two unknown musicians, a local one and the other foreign, most people would still choose the latter.

The same thing works with the program: It usually consists of more than 50 percent (sometimes even 100 percent) Bach, Mozart and other (dead for centuries) Europeans, as if classical music is caught by the grip of obsolete structures and practices.

The late great poet Wiji Thukul stated once: “This is our own country, here we are not tourists”, but many classical musicians are yet to reap the royalty.  

We must do more than be reproductions of an artificially selective fragment from the Western tradition, imitating with a limited repertoire of the great performers of the past. Imitating great people does not automatically generate greatness.

The IYCO performed classics such as music from The Pirates of the Caribbean, works by Johann Strauss and those clever orchestral scores of Leroy Anderson (The Waltzing Cat, Plink Plank Plunk and The Syncopated Clock), but a big chunk of the program consists of Addie MS’s orchestrations of Indonesian folk tunes that are now widely known due to being played on all Garuda Indonesia flights.

This is the exciting part of it, since most other orchestras in Indonesia mainly focus on the outdated routine of recycling repertoires consisting of the same composers again and again.

Listening to the IYCO is like bringing us back to the late 19th and early 20th century, when 80 percent of the repertoire played at concerts was fresh new music. An additional positive is that they are not stuck in just one genre.

Special mentions should be made for the soloists in the orchestra: flutist Ryan Limanto and cellist Fransisca Eleonora who excelled in their difficult solo parts.

An ideal scene in the future would be to integrate performance and music making into primary and secondary schools, although not as boring academic stuff, but through sustained teaching of performance, improvisation and composition, connecting our musical heritage to early life education.  

Classical music offers a way of life that provides an enriching and satisfying alternative to the standardization of commercial entertainment, enjoyable as it may be.

The sooner our musicians and various orchestra grasp this essential concept, the quicker they will see the wonderful opportunities of making a better society around them. And this concept will be solidly integrated in society when it is introduced to young people as early as possible.

IYCO plans to play in different formations, in different and even adventurous venues, and perhaps at different times, mixing genres and ensemble sizes in the one concert. Hopefully this will reconnect our musical practices to one of our primary sources of inspiration: the childhood wonder for everything.

The journey of IYCO has only begun, and it’s not going to be easy. No matter what lies ahead, we wish them all the best in channeling their dreams, energy and endeavors to put Indonesian classical music on the pedestal it deserves.

— The writer is a composer and pianist.

— Photos by Owen Nathanael

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