T

en of Southeast Asia’s most talented and inventive young composers have battled it out in a composition competition and international festival that attested to the rich seam of talent among the region’s youth.

The event, held by the German cultural center Goethe-Institut in cooperation with the Indonesian Education University (UPI), kicked off in Bandung, West Java, on Sept. 30.

The Young Composers in Southeast Asia Competition and Festival invited 10 of Asia’s most promising young musicians, selected by an international jury, to a workshop where they enjoyed the opportunity to exchange ideas and artistic practice.

After the workshop wrapped up on Oct. 7, the jury, who included Michael Asmara and Iwan Gunawan from Indonesia, Bernd Asmus of Germany and Jonas Baes of the Philippines, selected three winners. They are Matius Shan Boone from Indonesia with his piece “Mukena”, Danilo Endangan Imson from the Philippines with “Bulung-Bulungan” and Alexander J. Villanueva from the Philippines with his piece “Threnody IV”. Each of the winners received prize money of ¤2,000 (US$2,758).

At the end of the competition, concerts were held in Bandung, Yogyakarta and Jakarta to showcase the exceptional works of the participants. The pieces were performed by the Berlin-based Mosaik and the Bandung-based Kyai Fatahillah ensembles.

The organizer, Goethe-Institut, in an effort to help revitalize Indonesia’s traditional music and the Sundanese traditional gamelan ensemble, provided a twist to the competition: Participants were asked to submit compositions for Western instruments, for Sundanese gamelan’s pelog salendro instruments or a combination of the two.

“We are very excited about this musical encounter of artists from different cultural backgrounds, generations and levels of experience, who are gathering to create new works of music with both Western and traditional Indonesian instruments,” says Franz Xaver Augustin, regional director of the Goethe-Institut in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Dieter Mack, a professor at the Lübeck Academy of Music in Germany who worked as a guest lecturer at UPI in the 1990s, said mixing Western and Indonesian musical instruments and ensembles of musicians with both cultural backgrounds evokes not only new challenges but also potential confrontations.

“This experiment — the competition, the workshop and concerts — is a multi-facetted platform with many chances for inspiring artistic encounters, surprises, confrontations and even some possible dead ends,” he said.

“But isn’t that an important aspect of any art, or art production process, in relation to society? Art, especially music, can evoke very different emotions but it can also stimulate critical reflection processes about our society and our cultural development in the widest sense of its meaning,” he added.

For more information about the Young Composers in Southeast Asia Competition and Festival, visit www.jerin.or.id