Misael Elahrens Tambuwun (Courtesy of Misael Elahrens Tambuwun)

Misael Elahrens Tambuwun may not yet be a familiar name to the majority of music listeners but the lack of recognition certainly has nothing to do with the level of talent the 26-year-old has on hand.

With his very recent crowning as the first prize winner of the Magnumopus International Great Composers Competition 2017: The Art of Piano, listeners will do well in taking notice of this unique artist.

The challenging nature of Misael’s compositions find instruments intertwining in patient grace with each other, with notes constantly moving in unpredictable directions and keeping listeners on their toes. A sense of subtle tension permeates through his pieces, with sudden moments of clarity and chaotic explosiveness making unexpected appearances throughout.

The dynamics featured in Misael’s composition are beautiful in their own way, featuring a musical language that goes back to the works of boundary-pushing composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono and Pierre Boulez, albeit with more traditional elements evoked.

As the Jakarta-born musician explains, his pieces are the result of a lot of careful deliberation, many of which he developed as a student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University.

“Every time I compose a new piece, I always consider the story, form, contour line and more likely [I would follow] the graph that I sketched,” he told The Jakarta Post, adding that he sometimes puts himself in the audiences’ shoes “to assess my own piece and to ‘drown’ myself into its flow”.

Misael’s goal with his composition is for listeners to “get into” the atmosphere he builds through sound.

His idea is to “brainstorm your concept regardless of your ideas, color and contour lines”.

“I would say my music has its own segmentation where some particular groups of listeners will be thinking the other way around. However, I’m an open-minded person who’s accepting of any genres to be composed.”

It is certainly a specific mood for a segmented audience, one which, according to Misael, references less-orthodox music such as spectralism (sometimes known as spectral music), which is a compositional technique of creating music that finds its origins in the 1970s, where computer analysis of the quality of timbre in acoustic-focused music or artificial timbre derived from synthesis were utilized to create music.

He also references programmatic music, which relies more on the additional narrative surrounding classical music, such as building specific nuances or ideas, sometimes (not always) through the use of nonmusical elements such as song titles, story lines or visuals.

Misael’s music may not
exactly scream mainstream acceptance here.

His progressive approach touches on the avant-garde, which might be too much even for classical aficionados in his homeland, which generally appreciates more extravagant displays of musical prowess.

“We live in the 21st century where everything moves progressively. In other words, being leading edge is a lifestyle,” he says.

Fortunately, his talent does not go unnoticed, at least outside his home country.

“Misael’s unique music is engaging and dynamic. His rhythmically driven works are evocative of his Indonesian roots. His music bridges the gap of two cultures with energy, tenderness and joy,” BJ Brooks, associate professor of music at West Texas A&M University was quoted as saying.

Now residing in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, Misael’s work has also found its way into western media, including ABC, Fox, Voice of America and Rustavi 2 Europe.

A seemingly endless amount of commission work is also on his table, for notable musicians such as Grammy award winners Tony Arnold and Imani Winds, as well as Eri Nakamura from the Manhattan School of Music.

For his latest concert at the Amarilo Symphony in Texas, the US on Feb. 23, Misael performed an original piece titled “Pes Barbos Samogo for a Silent Movie” — a dynamic piece inspired by the legendary comedy trio the Three Stooges as they are “being chased by a dog attached with a TNT bomb”.

Misael relies on his self-confidence to further his artistry as well as his career, planning on continuing his involvement in various concerts and competitions.

“I’ve always tried to be involved in big competitions and I had the chance to win several of them.
Because of that, more people know about me and I’m honestly
surprised by how far I could go. I’ve always seen myself as someone who has great potential in composing, but when things really do fall into place, it always feels surprising in a good way.”

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