Band Trio Produces a Melting Pot of Sounds

By Ellen Lokajaya
Corsair Life Leisure

Jazz music echoed outside the Madison campus last Thursday from a black bus with a pull-out stage.

The unique concert featured Luluk Purwanto & the Helsdingen Trio, who traveled to 45 universities in 24 states promoting their tour called “Born Free - USA.”

The band consists of Rene van Helsdingen, pianist; Marcello Pelliteri, drummer; Essiet Okon Essiet, bassist, and Luluk Purwanto, vocalist and violinist. The group is performing in an Indonesian-American-Dutch cross-cultural tour around the U.S. as part of JakArt 2002. Their final concert was yesterday at Cal State Monterey Bay.

JakArt is an annual summer music festival that began in Indonesia last year.

The festival not only celebrates the birthday of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, but also tries to promote the advancement of the arts. Besides the Indonesian, American and Dutch embassies supporting the JakArt festival, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is also endorsing the festival.

“We are here to bring art to the people,” Helsdingen said to the audience during one of his breaks to talk about their tour. The “Born Free” promotional concert at Madison’s campus was an additional stop for Purwanto and her band and was organized by Charlie Yen, SMC’s Events department coordinator.

Most of the audience were friends of the performers. However as the concert aprreciated students, security officers and neighborhood folks captivated by the up-beat music, started streaming towards the outdoor concert. The vibrant rhythms had audiences tapping their feet or nodding their heads to the beat. One man murmured to his friend, “This sounds good!”

While Helsdingen gave a brief description about Indonesia’s sights and sounds to introduce his next song, “Slowly Moving in the Wind.” Purwanto provided the background music by playing various instruments including wind chimes, bells and toys. The children were fascinated by the sounds Purwanto made using plush toys.

The infectious sound of jazz music continued with a classic Indonesian song called “Waiting.”

According to Helsdingen, the slow romantic music invokes a sense of wistfulness for the Indonesians when they listen to it.

Judith Hoffberg, a regular patron of SMC concerts, zoomed to the concert when she remembered that there was going to be one at the Madison campus. “It was terrific. Its better than anything that you could describe,” she said.