Saya belum berhasil berbicara banyak untuk persiapan kalian ke lomba paduan suara internasional di Vietnam. Sebagai gantinya, biar tulisan pendek ini yang menjadi alat saya menghampiri kalian semua.
About last week, I, along with some friends whose tenure is less than a year, had the ‘honor’ to give a small presentation in front of my company’s branch seminar. I chose angklung (a traditional Sundanese, or West Javanese musical instrument made of bamboo and played by shaking it, each having one musical note) for a number of reasons. It was relatively easy and simple—anyone can play angklung without any musical knowledge, and as far as I know, many expatriates love it. It did brought back some memories, especially to my elementary school, when I played angklung against a team of housewives and ladies from Japan. Amazing.
Along with some of my friends doing the traditional Saman (Acehnese) welcome dance, the performance was a considerable hit. We did not expect the crowd to be that responsive and accepting—since the performance was right in the middle of the dinner’s main course. Applause boomed across the room. The Saman was exceptional, proud to be able to watch it and realizing that it turned out very well. The angklung performance was nice as well. We performed bits of four songs, representing Indonesia (the traditional Cingcangkeling and Manuk Dadali, both Sundanese), and two songs of Japanese (Kokoro no tomo and Utada Hikaru’s First Love), ending it together with the Saman team singing the Indonesian pop song Ekspresi, “Let us do some poetry, songs, music, and dances; the silver screens, the theatre stages are our places—people of the world, express ourselves!”
Ending it with cheer and applause from the crowd, as we collectively, in satisfaction, bow to honor the appreciation.
It was truly an honor and humbling at the same time.
I never conducted a choir this huge before. It is an 80-person strong choir, and who else but my high school choir? This also marks my 10th anniversary with this group, since I joined it in October 2006.
I am humbled and feel honored.
Earlier last week, I celebrated a major, yet subtle milestone. This is my eleventh consecutive years of participating in my high school choir—to put it another way, this year is my tenth anniversary participating in the choir. It was marked by a Sunday service at one of the major churches in Jakarta.
This is a story about a song.
True, it’s been quite a while since I last wrote anything.
It was crazy to ponder that these kids, not even 18 years old by then, were able to sing this quite difficult song. Filled with wide range of notes, dissonance, recitatives, and more, it was a joy to behold. Not perfect, of course, but brave enough to have gone there and done that. Pujilah Tuhan, a composition by Budi Susanto Yohanes, here performed for the Mixed Teenager-Youth Choirs at the National Church Choral Festival (Pesparawi Nasional) XI 2015.
Usai menanti beberapa hari, Lembaga Pengembangan Pesparawi Nasional (LPPN) secara resmi merilis hasil lengkap Pesta Paduan Suara Gerejawi (Pesparawi) Nasional XI yang diselenggarakan di Ambon pada 2-12 Oktober 2015. Dalam pengumumannya, terlampir surat-surat keputusan, nilai dan peringkat, nomor undian, serta para juri pada masing-masing kategori. Dengan telah melakukan pemeriksaan silang dengan daftar undian peserta Pesparawi Nasional XI (lihat di sini), berikut ini merupakan tabel hasil lengkap Pesparawi Nasional XI dari masing-masing kategori, sebagaimana dikutip dari surat-surat keputusan Dewan Juri Pesparawi Nasional XI 2015.
