Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
The Jakarta International Summer Music Festival (JISMF) was in fact not merely an assembly of diverse and outstanding groups of talented young musicians, music teachers and visiting international artists as it was expected to be.
More than that, the two-week event had also given a significant transformation to the characteristic of students at Jakarta Musical School (SMJ) in fact.
“What makes me very impressed and proud of the festival was that silent students turned to be talkative and those who where shy and scared appeared to be self confident through the festival,” pianist Kuei Pin Yeo told The Jakarta Post in an interview at SMJ campus in Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD) satellite city on Tuesday.
Yeo, artistic and music director as well as the initiator of JISMF said the festival held from June 21 to July 5 was merely expected to give talented young musicians an opportunity to learn from noted musicians and teachers from several other countries who have had experience in musical creativity.
The school invited Andrew Massey and Lisa Laskowich from the U.S. ; Pamela Wedgwood from the U.K. ; Arten Konstantinov and Gleb Dontzov from Russia ; Ichiro Kato from Japan ; Leanne Nicholls from Australia ; Olivia Skwara from Poland including Yeo’s husband who is Indonesian director of strings Jap Tji Kien.
They guided the participants in intensive but pleasant musical activities comprising individual lessons, master classes, workshops, chamber music, musical theater workshops, improvisations, choir, music appreciation, concerts and orchestral activities.
The event also introduced improvisation workshops and musical theater to the participants. Dozens of participants from various regions were taught how to design and create their own works through this workshop.
Students also learned from videos featuring musical theater shows from Broadway, such as The Producers, Chicago , Rent, Wicked and The Lion King. The participants will learn how to play roles for musical theater.
The musical productions put together from the training were be staged in the JISMF Gala Concert at the closing of the festival at the Jakarta Art Building in Central Jakarta .
SMJ which now has four learning centers besides the main campus in BSD is managed by the Jakarta Music Foundation, which was established by Kuei Pin Yoe in 1983.
As a dedicated educator whose unceasing efforts to bring world-class music education to Indonesia , Yeo also established the International Music Conservatory of Indonesia in early this year.
She is committed to producing high-quality young musicians who are well prepared in music performance and skills.
“Only this (dedication) what I can give back to the country where I was born, grew up and spend the rest of life” she said, adding that she Thanks to God because she always gets a balance in developing musical education in the country and performing at international concert stages.
Yoe was born in Jakarta in 1954. It was her mother who had mostly played important role in supports to her musical talent with high discipline to exercise.
Being the only girl in a family of four children, her parents supported her love for music and her decision to use music as a platform to realize her visions and duties as a musician and educator.
“I clearly remember when I was five years old. My parents bought a used piano for me and I began to seriously learn the music when I turned seven,” said Yoe who aspired to become a civil engineer.
“I clearly remember when I was five years old. My parents bought a used piano for me and I began to seriously learn the music when I turned seven,” said Yoe who aspired to become a civil engineer.
Yeo managed to attribute her conviction in maximizing her potential to her parents, who encouraged her to achieve the highest possible degree and she could prove it since elementary school.
After graduating from senior high, she was registered as a technical engineering student the Trisakti University .
Just a few months later, she left Trisakti because scholarship offer from the Manhattan University summoned her to study music in the USA .
She spent nine years of musical studies at the Manhattan School of Music in New York . When she retuned to the country, she became the first Indonesian to obtain a doctorate in Music (piano performance).
Yeo who can fluently speak in Mandarin and English, believes that striving is always the best for the better.
Her concerts have drawn praise in Europe , America and Asia . The New York Times, on the occasion of her Carnegie Hall recital debut, hailed her as both a polished technician and responsive musician, and even praised for her elegantly detailed, immaculate and musically direct interpretation.
According to Yeo, music begins to have a good prospect in the country since the mindset of most Indonesian people had also begun to shift forward.
“Most parents used to insist on their children to study the subjects the parents wanted but now many parents began to understand and even support children’s choice to study based on their talents.”
“I wish Indonesia could have a good standard of music and we could be proud of the achievement in musical scene and one day we could have a good orchestra like those in the developed countries,” she said.
She said good orchestra could not be established and survive without the attention of the government because orchestra needs a permanent place for exercise and concerts. It also needs spectators.
“To provide a permanent building for exercising, concerts and familiarize people with the classical music is the role of the Culture and Tourism Ministry. I am very concerned because skyscrapers continue to grow in the capital but not an orchestra building,” she said.Her marriage with Jap Tji Kien in 1983 has given them a couple of children Anthony Jaya, 22 and Stephanie Jaya, 18
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