Paul Gutama Soegijo (29 January 1934 – 7 January 2019) was an Indonesian composer and musician, active in Berlin. Born in

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...

on the island of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, Soegijo studied composition with

Boris Blacher Boris Blacher (30 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist. Life Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (he ...

at Berlin's . He began his compositional career in the experimental

Neue Musik Neue Musik (English ''new music'', French ''nouvelle musique'') is the collective term for a wealth of different currents in composed Western art music from around 1910 to the present. Its focus is on compositions of 20th century music. It is char ...

style but later transitioned to using elements of Indonesian music in his works, particularly the

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

percussion instruments. He visited Indonesia between 1977 and 1985 to study the gamelan instruments, and in his later works he often combined Western influences with the gamelan traditions that he learned.

Early life and education

Soegijo was born on 29 January 1934 in

on the island of

, then a part of the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

. After studying the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

at the Indonesian College of Music, at 19 years old he was awarded a scholarship from the Catholic Mission to attend the in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

from 1957 to 1962. At the conservatory, he trained with teachers such as the Dutch composer

Ton de Leeuw Antonius Wilhelmus Adrianus de Leeuw (Rotterdam, 16 November 1926 - Paris, 31 May 1996) was a Dutch composer. He occasionally experimented with microtonality. Life and career Taught by Henk Badings, Olivier Messiaen and others, and in his youth i ...

and graduated with degrees in violin and

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

. He then moved to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in 1964 to study

musical composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...

with the German composer

at the (now the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

Career

In 1967, Soegijo composed , a work for four

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

s and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

. It was received positively in Germany and launched his career as a composer. The following year he composed for solo piano, which was later recorded by

Steffen Schleiermacher Steffen Schleiermacher (born Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Halle, 3 May 1960) is a German composer, pianist, and conducting, conductor. He incorporated Western

techniques in his early works. Reviewing ''Asia Piano Avantgarde'', Rob Haskins of ''

American Record Guide The ''American Record Guide'' (''ARG'') is a classical music magazine. It has reviewed classical music recordings since 1935. History and profile The magazine was founded by Peter Hugh Reed in May 1935 as the ''American Music Lover''. It chang ...

'' described as an "anxious" piece with "the nervous tic of 1960s avant-garde music". From 1968, Soegijo's compositions were published by

Bote & Bock Bote & Bock is a German publishing house founded in Berlin in 1838 by Eduard Bote and Gustav Bock (1813-1863). The first Gustav Bock was a musically gifted publisher with an eye for opera. Eduard Bote withdrew from the business in 1847, after the ...

and played throughout Europe. Traditional indonesian instruments04

He founded an experimental ensemble, Banjar Gruppe Berlin, in 1973. The group specialised in playing pieces using musical instruments from around the world rather than traditional European instruments. During this time, Soegijo began a transition to a contemporary Indonesian style of music in his compositions for Banjar Gruppe, deviating from his previous Neue Musik style, and he developed an interest in the

percussion instruments of Java and

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...

. He travelled between Germany and Indonesia between 1977 and 1985 to learn their gamelan techniques and traditions. He then created a study curriculum for the gamelan instruments which he used to train the members of Banjar Gruppe. According to the Indonesian composer Franki Raden, the combination of Western influences and gamelan traditions in Soegijo's later works was termed " ("music of the new originality"). In 1999, Soegijo performed at the annual festival of the which was held in Indonesia for the first time in the festival's history. In 2002, he composed for solo percussion and dedicated it to his older brother, Gregorius Sidharta, as a birthday present. He performed the piece at the opening of Gregorius's sculpture exhibition in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

; the brothers had previously collaborated in 1996. The composition was praised by Bintang Prakarsa of ''

The Jakarta Post ''The Jakarta Post'' is a daily English-language newspaper in Indonesia. The paper is owned by PT Niskala Media Tenggara and based in the nation's capital, Jakarta. ''The Jakarta Post'' started as a collaboration between four Indonesian med ...

'', who applauded its improvisational style and wrote that Soegijo was "as scrupulous as any Western (ethno)musicologists or composers".

Later life and death

Soegijo retired from public performances in 2011 after performing with Banjar Gruppe Berlin at the Jakarta Berlin Arts Festival, which was held in Berlin and celebrated the culture of Jakarta. He died in Berlin on 7 January 2019 at the age of 84.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soegijo, Paul Gutama 1934 births 2019 deaths 20th-century German composers 20th-century German male musicians 21st-century German composers 21st-century German male musicians Berlin University of the Arts alumni Conservatorium van Amsterdam alumni Gamelan musicians German male composers German people of Javanese descent German percussionists Musicians from Berlin People from Yogyakarta