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Brilio.net/en - More talented Indonesian young musicians are showing off what they got and taking to the global stage. After the prodigy child Joey Alexander took the Oscar stage by storm, now 29-year old pianist Sri Hanuraga, nicknamed Aga, gained international recognition by launching his album To The Universe. This first album is produced under deMajors Records, compiling 10 tracks of self-produced quartet recording of piano/bass/drums/flute.
Aga started his first classic piano lessons at the age of 11 and got really into it at age 13 when he watched a video of trio progressive rock, Emerson Lake & Palmer (ELP). Keith Emerson was the one who made him focus on the piano, whereas he also played guitar before that. Also from Emerson did Aga heard of Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson and Bud Powell, who were the names that influenced Emersons music. Aga didnt really dig those hardbop, bebop, or free jazz musicians though. He listened more intensively to Indra Lesmanas albums, especially from the album Reborn (2000).
"I'm very inspired by Indra, I learned of lot from him and adopted his philosophy of music, he admitted to The Jakarta Post in an interview. At the age of 17, Aga started to learn jazz piano with the musician himself, Indra Lesmana, and also in Farabi music school. Another Indonesian jazz group he listens to is Simak Dialog, especially the album Trance/Mission (2002).
Sri Hanuraga/Photo by Moonjune Music
Also at age 17, Aga won the first place of jazz competition at Jazz Goes to Campus (JGTC) held in University of Indonesia and performed at several jazz events throughout Southeast Asia and Europe, including the Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival. Aga then moved to Holland at age of 19 and deepened his jazz piano at the music school Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He had gained several awards ever since then, to mention a few are the Soloist Prize in East Eastern Jazz Festival in Nijmegen, Holland in 2006 and the second place for Young Pianist Foundation (YPF) Jazz Piano Competition in 2009. He finished his study with a cum laude with distinction citation.
In 2010 Aga formed W/H/A/T Quartet with Sandy Winarta in drums, Riza Arshad in keyboards and Indrawan Tjhin in acoustic double bass. He also formed Sri Hanuraga Trio with Slovenian drummer Kristijan Kranjcan and German bassist Theo Balbig. Recently he had released Just Braggin album with The Brag Pack, a multinational group consists of Paul Rutschka (German), Roald Becher (Holland) and Dniel Mester (Hungarian).
Just Braggin is a rich jazz album with touches of bop/hardbop, swing, blues, funk and traditional in it. There are several Indonesian folk songs such as Ilir Ilir and Cublak Suweng and one national song Bangun Pemuda Pemudi. The album has touches of Coltrane, Parker, Mehldau and Indonesian legendary Allstars album Djanger Bali which was recorded in Berlin in 1967.
For the latest album To The Universe, Aga had some more European musicians supporting him: drummer Kristijan Krajncan, bassist Mattia Magatelli and flautist Rodrigo Parejo Mateos. This album is the result of Agas learning, which is a combination of various different genres from progressive rock, jazz-rock fusion and straight-ahead jazz with folk songs. He got his influences from Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner, but his biggest influence came from Brad Mehldau, an American jazz pianist/composer/arranger.
Some of the most brilliant tracks are Teka-Teki, Amadeus and A Palm For You, which was recorded under MoonJune Records in Amsterdam, Holland. As reported in Classicalite, the label MoonJune Records has claimed itself as a "progressive music exploring the boundaries of jazz, rock, avant-garde & the unknown". The name was taken from a 1970 progressive-rock album entitledThe Moon In Juneby Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt. Under the leadership of Leonardo Pavkovic, the CEO and a musician himself, MoonJune has positioned its wares as a solid independent alternative with a stacked roster of courageous musicians.
(brl/red)
