Morning of the World – Exploring New Beginnings

January 2021

A virtual concert presenting musicians from Singapore and Indonesia

The world has changed much since the Covid 19 pandemic hit us. No one, nowhere is spared.

But human resilience has kept us going and saw us seizing new opportunities that arises out of this challenge posed to us by nature.

While the arts has been one of the most battered by the pandemic, the creativity in us has grown to new heights. Technology is now our best partner.  What we thought as difficult in the past, has  moved to seamless online collaborations.

Morning of the World is an international project combining cross-disciplinary, multi-cultural creative collaboration that breaks down geographical barriers between musicians from Singapore and Indonesia. Here, we will explore the dynamics of sounds from western classical to Chinese classical and gamelan music with electronic sounds. The project will give opportunities for the artists to explore one another’s special areas of interests, capturing the stirrings of a fresh start – an awakening and a journey from and with tradition.

The pandemic has forced us to look at reaching out to the communities differently. We need to find common grounds in our diversity and distance. Here, we will embrace our heritage and find inspiration in our differences by allowing modernity and the digital world into this alliance, playing our part as global citizens while socially distant. 

Creative Partners

Sulwyn Lok
Sulwyn is a young award-winning composer who wants to connect humans and cultures through music, and go beyond cultural boundaries.

Sulwyn is the Music Director for this project.

Siah Tiong Hong
Siah is an accomplished creative web design artist with experiences in both the commercial and arts industries. He has collaborated in many ground-breaking multimedia projects in the past, including one with Tang Quartet’s captivating production of Black Angel, creating an audio reactive visual narrative to its live performance. 

Rozie Hoong
Award-winning erhu player Rozie is a champion of diversity through the arts. She is a member of the fresh ensemble Stringwerkz and the ground-breaking Open Score Project. Equally at home as a soloist as well as an ensemble musician, Rozie is one of Singapore’s most valued musical talents.

Gildon Choo
A graduate of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Gildon is equally adept with Chinese classical as well as contemporary music. He is one of Singapore’s leading pipa player in multi-ethnic collaborative performances.

Putu Adi Septa Suweca Putra (Bali, Indonesia)
Contemporary Balinese gamelan exponent and composer, Septa graduated from ISI Denpasar. He is Bali’s rising music star and very much in demand in the international world music scene.

Ismet Ruchimat (Bandung, Indonesia)
Ismet is a multi-talented artist and academician. He is the respected leader of the internationally renown Sundanese gamelan jazz group, Sambasunda, introducing Sundanese gamelan music to the world through many international collaborations. Today, as the Vice Director of Post Graduate Program at ISI Bandung, and the Artistic Director of Matasora Festival Bandung, Ismet creates many opportunities for local musicians and his students to work with different artists and genres, locally and internationally.

Yati Yusoff
With a motto of living and breathing arts, Yati’s extensive experiences working in the region has given her a network of possibilities to bring artists, producers, presenters and sponsors together.

She is the Producer for this project.

Notes from Composer & Music Director, Sulwyn Lok

Morning of the World ponders about a world resetting amidst recurring struggles and clashes in the world, and questions our identity and existence. The work takes the audience across 4 movements, subjecting ourselves to reflections and questions of:

| where are we
| who are we
| what are we
| why are we
| when are we
| how are we

Movement I

| where are we

We begin in a world in darkness, without any form, without any grounding. We hear fragments of sounds around us, before a solo Sundanese suling appears in the distance. More lost instruments join it slowly, as the work goes through episodic moments of seeking and searching, amidst dissonance and strange textures processed from an opposing Balinese suling. Searching for a way out, searching for directions, searching for one another.

The piece starts to take shape gradually, as the instruments find each other and connect. The erhu takes the lead with a melody very much like a Chinese folk song, while the pipa dances along with its own song in the vein of Indonesian folk music. Percussion instruments from Indonesia gently accompany this dance. The whole group comes together in a passage almost like a chorale. The erhu and pipa sing the movement’s song in a Chinese scale while the cello sings the same tune in an Indonesian scale, incidentally harmonizing with each other. This strange song is almost beautiful, but yet, fleeting – before we know it, this glimmer of light disappears.

Movement II

| who are we

The pemade chimes in a stately manner, as though we know where we are going. Before long, we realize – it’s a cycle. And so are all the instruments that have started to chime in, they are all cyclical, different layers of time moving in and out of phase with each other. We are drawn into this journey deep into our minds, to reflect upon our identity, who we are. The deeper we go, the more intense the world outside gets, before completely swallowing us.

Movement III

| what are we
| why are we

We are suddenly wrenched and flung into the unknown, as we go down the spirals of the mind questioning “what are we?”, and “why are we?”. A raw and primal energy assaults our mind, relentlessly hurling us in different directions – the recurring conflicts of our mortal world through time all converging.

Movement IIV

| when are we
| how are we

Nyepi. A moment of silence. Has the world reset? When are we? How are we – how are who we are and what we are? We hear echoes and memories, musical fragments from before, transcending different dimensions and planes of existence.

At the end of the whole journey, this space is constructed for us to think, and feel. You may have an altered state of mind, you may have thoughts, you may have questions, but yet, despite all that, be in a state of peace, while we ask, “Will there be a morning of the world?”

What the Collaborators Say….

Students Get Curious…

Thank You for the Support

Institute Seni Bandung, Indonesia

https://www.isbi.ac.id/

Behind the Scenes in Pictures