Perhaps no one typifies the brilliance of the emerging local musician more than the young jazz pianist, Erik Sondhy.  Erik is a bold and intense musician, willing and able to adapt and extemporize with seamless ease.  His range of styles it seems, knows no barriers.  He started playing at the tender age of 11 at church recitals and his musical freedom is possibly because he is self-taught and was not constrained by tutors, style or their musical preferences. He is certainly one of Indonesia’s rising Jazz stars.
Published by Jakarta Post on May 2013

Grew up with Classical Music, He started his career as a jazz artist which lead him to wide range of evolving Music exploration.

He has produce seven albums and performances in Jazz, World Music, Neo-classical, Electronic and Experimental Music.

His vision is to narrate an immersive music scenario telling pure emotions.

Contact:
echa_tesla@yahoo.co.id
+62 856 5903 1760

Sandy Winarta now has emerged as a versatile drummer, one of the busiest jazz drummers in today’s jazz circuit. This native Balinese talent is active as a member in several different bands, including Sarimanouk Quartet, Pitoelas Big Band, and joining Indra Lesmana and Barry Likumahuwa in Mostly Jazz, the event that marked the birth of Indonesia’s Jazz movement. Recently he formed his new group, Sandy Winarta Quartet.
It began with a fascination in the sounds that instruments make that led Sandy pursuing music at the Australian Institute of Music, Sydney (Australia) in 2000.

Jazzuality 20 July 2010



Gerald Situmorang was born in Jakarta on May 31, 1989. He began playing guitar at the age of 13. Initially, he studied under Armstrong Pitoi of the New Breeze for 3 years, Nikita Dompas for one year where he improved his skills and grew his passion in jazz, and later he took private lessons at Institut Musik Daya with Dion Janapria for one semester. He has also participated at "Serambi Jazz Workshop" with Florian Ross, Henning Sieverts, Wolfgang Haffner, and Kai Brückner. He also took a Masterclass with Indra Lesmana.

He first started writing and composing his own music at the age of 14. At 16, he composed several songs for his duo "Sketsa".

Gerald won the first prize in eX Jazz Battle 2009 with BAG Trio, and received a special award "Excellent Duo In Jazz" with Gerald & Ryan in 31st JGTC Competition.

Gerald has participated in many of Indonesia's most prestigious festivals such as Jazz Goes To Campus, Java Jazz Festival, JakJazz Festival, ASEAN Jazz Festival, Java Soulnation, PL Fair and many more. He also participated in World Youth Jazz Fest 2014 in Malaysia.

On January 31st, 2010 he released his debut album with Sketsa "Childhood's Dream". It was nominated for the 2010 Indonesia Cutting Edge Music Awards (ICEMA) "Favorite Jazz Song Category" for "Childhood's Dream".
Gerald and his duo Sketsa was also nominated for an AMI Awards (Anugerah Musik Indonesia) which is the equivalent to the Grammy Awards in Indonesia in 2011 for the category of Best Jazz/Instrumental Performance by a solo artist or duo/group for his song "Childhood's Dream" which is on Sketsa's debut album.

Sketsa's second album, "Different Seasons", was released in May 22, 2013. The album was produced by Tohpati.

Gerald has also released albums with Hemiola Quartet "Oddventure" (November 22nd, 2012) and with Monita Tahalea & The Nightingales "Songs of Praise" (August 21st, 2013, produced by Indra Lesmana).

He received "Best Newcomer Artist" award with Hemiola Quartet from 36th Jazz Goes To Campus, the oldest jazz festivals in Indonesia.

He released "Time Is The Answer" album with his trio (June 7th, 2014). And got nominated for 2014 Indonesia Cutting Edge Music Awards (ICEMA) "Best Jazz Track" and stay in the" Indonesia Top 10 Albums" for 5 months on Rolling Stone Magazine Indonesia (September 2014 - January 2015).

He joined BARASUARA in 2012, which he plays bass and released their critically acclaimed debut album “Taifun’ in October 22, 2015. Rolling Stone Indonesia placed it at number two in their list of “20 Best Indonesian Album 2015” and also listed on CNN Indonesia “10 Best Indonesian Album of 2015”. He received “Best Live Act” with BARASUARA from Rolling Stone Indonesia Editor’s Choice Award 2016 and got nominated for “Breakthrough Artist of the Year” & “Best Album of the Year” from Indonesian Choice Awards 2016.

On 2015, alongside with Monita Tahalea, they produce Monita’s second album “Dandelion” (December 1st 2015).

His debut solo guitar album “Solitude” will soon be released in mid year of 2016.

Besides performing with Sketsa & BARASUARA, Gerald is a member of several music groups, including BAG+BEAT, Hemiola Quartet, Dimas Wibisana & His Mates, Barry Likumahuwa Quintet, & Monita Tahalea and The Nightingales.

Gerald Situmorang has performed with many musicians, including : Tohpati, Erwin Gutawa, Indra Lesmana, Riza Arshad, Aksan Sjuman, Barry Likumahuwa, Raisa, Monita Tahalea, Agnez Mo, Efek Rumah Kaca, Matajiwa, Indra Aziz, Nikita Dompas, Mery Kasiman, Ayushita, Calvin Jeremy, Oran Etkin and many more.

Discography :

- Sketsa - "Childhood's Dream" (2010)
- Hemiola Quartet - "Oddventure" (2012)
- Sketsa - "Different Seasons" (2013)
- Monita Tahalea & The Nightingales - "Song of Praise" (2013)
- Gerald Situmorang Trio - "Time Is The Answer" (2014)
- BARASUARA - “Taifun” (2015)
- Gerald Situmorang - “Solitude” (2016)

Grand prize winners at last year's Choir Olympics in Busan and at a similar competition in Linz, Austria in 2000, is a group of more than 40 performers.

The troupe's leader, Elfa Secioria, is a grand figure in the region's music scene. Born in 1959 to Hasbullah Secioria, a famous musician and conductor, he has been dedicated to performing and music education.

He founded Elfa's Music Studio, a private music school, and selected the best students from the school to tour around the world as cultural envoys of the country.

Elfa's Jazz & Pop Singers have released 18 albums since their debut in 1984, selling more than 3 million copies. Especially popular around Southeast Asia, they've picked up awards at various music contests, including Indonesia Pop Song Award in 1988 and Thai International Jazz Festival in 1996.

The group united with Elfa's Choir, composed of 32 singers, in 1988, to form the present group. The choir is known for singing a cosmopolitan repertoire in the Indonesian style.

(Born Februari 20, 1959 in Garut, West Java) is an Indonesian composer, arranger and Jazz Musician. Elfa appears as Music Director, Arranger on score "Sherina Musical Movie" and Andhien single album "Bisikan Hati".

His many awards Grand Champion and Gold Medal include; 1st Choir Olympic 2000, Linz, Austria; 2nd Choir Olympic 2002, Busan, South Korea; 3rd Choir Olympic 2004, Bremen, Germany and 4th Choir Olympic 2006, Xiamen, China...

The Choir lead by famous Indonesian musician, Mr. Elfa Secioria, once again gained achievement in Italy, 22 -- 24 October 2004.

The International Choir Competition & Festival in Grado, Italy is a routine happening held by Inter-Culture World Organization Foundation based in Germany.

Besides Indonesia represented by Elfa's MYC, the festival also followed by other 13 countries which are Russia, Hungarian, Germany, Austria, China, Poland, Argentina, Denmark, Slovenia, Norway, Czech, Estonia and Britain.

On the festival Elfa's MYC brought 2 affiliated classic songs: 'Contrapunto bestialle alla mente' and 'Nightingale, the organ delight', also 2 ethnic songs: 'Paris Barantai' and 'Batak Medley'.

Through the process of panel judgment, Elfa's MYC finally grabbed 3 Prizes: Golden Prize, Special Prize for Outstanding Artistic Choir and also Champion Of The Category for Mix Junior Category.

The achievement in Grado added the champion list of the choir lead by Mr. Elfa Secioria as on July 2004 in Bremen, Germany, Elfa's Singers and Elfa's Ethnic Choir were crowned as The World Champion at The International Choir Olympic Champion. That's the third times they became the Olympic champ after Olympic 2000 in Linz, Austria and Olympic 2002 in Busan, Korea. 3 times in a row!!

On that 3rd Choir Olympics, 2 Golden Champions for Indonesia came from "Vocal Jazz With Accompaniment Category" with score 91 and for "Popular Choir Category", both by Elfa's Singers. The Vocal Jazz Category is the highest gold prize thus the winner in this category should become the grand champion.

Indonesia also got 3 Gold, one of them came from "Folklore With Instrumental Accompaniment Category" by Elfa's Ethnic Choir with score 82.75.

Mr. Secioria's arranged songs that finally grabbed gold are: How High The Moon, Bungong Jeumpa/Acehnese, No More blues, Minang Medley, Take Five, Sundanese Medley, Stompin at the Sandy Medley, and Janger/Balinese and many more.

For this great achievement, the world admits that Indonesia is the world direction of reference popular choir. Ironically, never once of these achievements got attention from the government. The contingents always had to pay themselves for joining this competition. They stay in a cheap hotel, pay the bills themselves and even happened to walk to the competition area just like they did in Bremen.

A Breakthrough Acid Jazz Band from Indonesia since 1997

Booking Contact : +6282125678935

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