Search - Ida Widawati, Lingkung Seni Malati :: Tembang Sunda: Classical Music from West Java

Tembang Sunda: Classical Music from West Java is the first compact disk to be issued out of a larger body of recordings from Indonesia. It is a little known fact that Indonesia is the fourth largest country on Earth with a population approaching 200 million. It is the world's largest Islamic country, and it is Australia's nearest neighbor. Only ca. 100 km (60 miles) away from the northern tip of Australia, it is about as distant as Cuba is from the United States and what a distance that represents in real life...Once again, the intrepid New Zealand producer/musician/composer David Parsons has made a significant contribution to the knowledge of a little known culture and its little known music. The booklet gives a detailed introduction into Java's contemporary culture (written by The New York Times journalist Barbara Crossette) as well as into the esoteric realm of Tembang Sunda/Cianjuran music in particular (written by eminent ethnomusicologist Andrew Weintraub). It is a landmark of world music and a unique achievement by an expert team of musicians, producers, engineers and writers; it continues Celestial Harmonies' tradition of long standing to enrich the catalogue with recordings from Southeast Asian countries which will play a significant role in the development of the 21st century but are nevertheless widely unknown and misunderstood in the West.