A Visual Journal of the City of Bandung and Its Vicinities.
A photo a day with insightful and informative commentaries from the capital city of West Java and one of the most fascinating cities in Indonesia.®
A spectacular show of stage lighting at a life concert held by SCTV, an Indonesian private national television channel, at Tegalega Park, Bandung, a few days before the Eid-al-Fitr 2012.
The holy month of Ramadan here is not only a religious event, but also a month of festivities. Television channels often hold life concert tours featuring 'religious' (and not-so-religious) music and other forms of 'religious' entertainment like this one. The atmosphere at these concerts are not always religious, of course. Many of the audience are young people who have no other reasons to come but to enjoy themselves.
The stage act of an independent-band singer taking part in Bandung Youth Band Festival 2011 held at Cihampelas Walk (Ciwalk) yesterday (Sunday, December 18, 2011).
Here are some of the pictures that I took at Bandung World Jazz Festival 2010 which began today and will last till tomorrow at Sabuga.
Bandung World Jazz Festival is an annual event and this year's is the second. The first was held last year.
Fifty two jazz groups from Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and USA are performing in this year's festival which is themed "Sound Through Dimension".
The theme was chosen to reflect the uniquely diverse musical traditions of the participating groups and the collaborative projects that they are trying to forge to create mutual musical dialogs that are expected to produce new musical compositions, sensations, alteration, opinions, interpretations, and expressions.
Krakatau Band has a unique concept of music that combines Indonesian ancient Gamelan tonal system called Slendro or Salendro (which is known in Karawitan traditional music of Sunda, Java, and Bali) as the basis and the Western diatonic musical elements to form an energetic jazzy-feel fusion.
Their performance here I should say was very electrifying and managed to spell the audience (myself included) to sit (some even stand) still, cheer, and sing with them ever under the heat of the early afternoon sun. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to upload the video I took because of the slow internet connection. But you can listen to the sample of their musical compositions in their website that I linked above.
During the violin perfomance (see my post yesterday), somebody came onto the stage. He was unexpected but brought a lot of laughters among the audience. This guy, a Ganiater, added so much fun (or distraction?) to the music performance.
Can you see what he's doing and point out what's odd about it?
It's always fun to see Ganiaters (the members of GANIATI) perform. Here's one I captured on video.
His name's Ammy Kurniawan. He is a Fine Art-ist by education. He graduated from the Fine Art Department of Indonesia University of Education, Bandung. But he is best known as a violin soloist, music arranger and conductor, and an alternative strings and jazz musician. He is the founder and owner of Ammy Alternative Strings, a music school that he established to share his love for string instruments, and a member of 4Peniti (lit. 4 safety pins), an alternative indi music group that he established with his friends.
I love his performances, solo or with the 4Peniti. Here's a sample of his violin students' performance that I videotaped at Galeri Kriya Kulit Jawa Barat (West Java Leather Craft Exhibition) in Bandung on Augutst 7, 2010.
If you'd like to hear what kind of music the 4Peniti plays, you may want to go here. Let me know if you like and enjoy it. I do!
It's not easy to do stage photography if you can't get close to the stage or don't have the right equipment. But I was happy doing this one with my pocket camera (my other cameras being out of batteries) and from a position that's not close enough to get good photographs. The music was simply great and electrifying. So even when I could not get decent pictures of this group's stage performance, I was just happy being there to listen to their music.
This is Sambasunda performing at last week's Bambu Nusantara World Music Festival. Sambasunda is a Bandung-based group of creative contemporary musicians whose unique musical compositions and performances have won them a number of worldwide acclaims. Their music is modern but deeply rooted in the rich varieties of Indonesian traditional musical traditions.
The group was established in 1990 with the name PRAWA. In 1997, the name was changed to CBMW. The current name - Samba Sunda - was adopted in 1998 when they launched their first album "Rhythmical Sundanese People" of which "Sambasunda" was one of the songs.
Contrary to what many people think about the name, Sambasunda has nothing to do with the Latin music of Samba. Sambasunda is a combination of "samba", a Cirebonese dialect word that means a pre-puberty teenager, and Sunda, the name of an Indonesian ethnic unit, the native population of the western part of the Java island.
I'll upload the video of their performance later at my other blog Bandung Daily Video.
This past weekend (Saturday and Sunday, October 17 & 18), Bandung again became the host of the Bambu Nusantara World Music Festival . 60 bamboo music groups from Indonesia and overseas were invited and performed at this annual festival held jointly by the Indonesian Department of Tourism and Culture, Bandung creative communities, and private sponsors. This year's festival is the third. The first was held in Jakarta in 2007, the second at SABUGA (Ganesha Cultural Convention Center) Bandung last year, and this year it's held in Bandung's Paris Van Java.
This year's Bambu Nusantara Festival is held as part of the Helarfest. As some of you may remember from last year, the Helarfest is a series of events showcasing the emerging creative culture in the city of Bandung. More information about it is available at the Helarfest 2009 website.
In addition to providing a forum for Indonesian bamboo artists to meet and showcase their works, this festival also aims at improving public awareness of the role of bamboo in arts, culture, and environment. Therefore, in addition to music and art performances, it also staged seminars and conducted bamboo planting in areas around the venue.
It was impossible for me to follow all the activities in this two-day packed event. But beginning today I'm going to share with you whatever photos, and videos of festival that I could manage to make.
And here's the first one: Jegog Bali (Balinese Jegog bamboo gamelan ensemble). To see what the performance is like and listen to the music, please check out this post at Bandung Daily Video.
Creativity, a mental and social process whereby new concepts or ideas are generated, is a complex phenomenon. Different branches of sciece have studied it. However, up to this point, there are no unified authoritative explanations yet of how it is generated or how it can be nurtured. Some say, it's a Divine gift. Some others say it has to do with personality traits or social environment. There are even people who believe that it happens by chance.
Regardless of the theoretical debates, there is enough evidence that some communities are more creative than others as shown by the creative works they have produced. This phenomenon can probably show that creativity is to a large extent socially generated and nurtured. Based on this assumption, Nickerson (1999), for example, proposed some techniques whereby creativity can be generated and nurtured. Some of these techniques include encouraging confidence and willingness to take risks and providing opportunities for choice and discoveries.
Bandung Creative City is not just a title that has been awarded to this city for nothing. A lot of trend-setting creative products of fashion, designs, architecture, and music have been made in the city. 80 percent of Indonesia's top music groups, for example, originates from this city. Big names that are currently at the top music charts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, such as Peterpan, The Cangchuters, and Kuburan - just to mention a few - are originally from Bandung.
The emergence of these groups does not come by chance. This city nurtures creativity by providing a lot of opportunities for young aspiring talents to experiment, show, and perform their creative works. These photos of young emerging music groups performing on stages set on Braga street sometime ago are just some examples of how the city nurtures creativity.
The above photo is of Angklung Jaipong dance, one of the art and cultural performances staged at Saung Angklung Udjo (Udjo's Angklung House).
Among many performing art groups and houses in Bandung, Saung Angklung Ujdo (or SAU for short) is probably unique in that it is professionally managed and stages performances of a wide array of Sundanese (West Javanese) arts on the daily basis. Established in 1966 by the late Udjo Ngalagena or Mang Udjo and his wife Uum Sumiati, SAU takes pride in its vision and mission not only as a place where Sundanese arts are performed, but also as a living art laboratory and an institution that strive to preserve the Sundanese cultural heritage and provide community-based art education.
The word "angklung" that makes up its name indicates SAU's specialty in this kind of bamboo musical intrument. Angklung is a Sundanese (West Javanese) traditional musical instrument made of bamboo. Angklung performances are the main stapple of SAU's menu. Throughout the two hour daily performances, the angklung and Sundanese bamboo music makes up five out of ten performances given. In one of them, the audience is given a chance to play angklung together as an orchestra with the guidance of an expert teacher. Please check my other blog BANDUNG DAILY VIDEO at some later time to hear the music and see how angklung is played.
Other performances offered at SAU include a Wayang Golek demonstration, Tari Topeng Cirebon (Cirebonese Mask Dance), and Helaran (festive celebration of important occasions in the Sundanese society), and Tari Merak (Peacock Dance).
SAU is located on Jalan Padasuka 118 in the east of Bandung.
This post is BANDUNG DAILY PHOTO's participation in My World Tuesday. Please click the link to check other posts from the participating blogs from around the world.
This is a picture of "Kendang", the traditional Sundanese drum. Like any drums, it is a membraphonic percussion musical instrument.
Sundanese "kendangs" are classified and named according to their sizes. The largest of them is called "kendang gede" (the large drum), then there is "kendang leutik" (the smaller drum), and "katipung" (the smallest drum).
If you look at the picture, one side of the Sundanese drum has a wider surface than the other. The part with the wider surface is called "bem" and the one with the narrower surface is called "kempyang".
A standard "kendang" is usually about 60 - 70 centimeters (23.6 - 27.5 inches) long, with the diameter of about 20 centimeters at the "bem" side, 25 centimeters in the middle, and 15 centimeters at the "kempyang" side.
"Kendang" is usually played in a set, that is the larger "kendang" and its smaller "siblings". It can be played to accompany a dance (for example in "Jaipongan"), in a combination with other musical instruments like in "degung" or even in an ensemble of their own, which is called "rampak kendang".
To see how this musical instrument is played in a "rampak" (ensemble), please check out this 9 minute 24 second youtube video presentation courtesy of kocin. This "rampak kendang" performance was made by KABUMI, the performing art group of the Indonesia University of Education Bandung (my Alma matter) who was performing in Tokyo quite a while ago. (Note: The video includes an opening speech in Japanese by the host of the program. The actual performance starts at minute 1:15.)
Acculturized from the Portuguese folk music of fado, keroncong began to develop in some parts of the Indonesian archipelago, especially in the Tugu area of what is now Jakarta and Maluku (the Moluccas), in the 19th century. It has since acquired a distinctively Indonesian flavor and hence been considered as an Indonesian musical heritage.
The root of keroncong is said to have been introduced into the Indonesian archipelago by the Portuguese sailors and officers in the 16th century. The earliest form of keroncong is called Moresco, which is characterized by - among others - the dominant use of chordophonic-percussion musical instruments. In its development, various local musical instruments and elements, such as some instruments of the gamelan, seruling bambu (Javanese and Sundanese bamboo flutes), and musical notes, were introduced into the ensemble, thus giving it a distinctively local flavor.
For your information, a keroncong ensemble typically consists of cordophonic musical instruments such as the violin, the guitar, cello, contra bass, three and four strings ukuleles, plus a flute, and some gamelan instruments.
Keroncong became very popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its popularity began to fade only with the introduction of The Beatles' style of music in the 1960s. The music still survives and has its own fans, however, as is shown by this group of young keroncong musicians performing at the Braga Festival last December. I was happy to see that this performance did not only attract audience from the older generations, but also a lot of young people who seemed to enjoy it as much as their parents and grandparents did.
To see what the performance was like and listen to a sample of what this music is like, please enjoy the following 1 minute 52 seconds video clip which I recorded from their performance. (This video can also with viewed at my other blog BANDUNG DAILY PHOTO'S sister site BANDUNG DAILY VIDEO.)
This post is BANDUNG DAILY PHOTO'S participation in MY WORLD Tuesday meme. To see other participants' posts from around the world, please follow the link.
