If Music Be The Food of Love, Play On

Oh it’s been a very very very long time since my last post and here I wanna tell you. I’ve graduated and I’m a clinical psychologist now!

I really love music so then I wrote a thesis about music therapy. Believe me, combining psychology, biology, and music is really something but thank God I enjoyed it a lot (and finally graduated). Ah, so let’s talk about music. 

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I’ve been a fan of Bandung Philharmonic, a pro orchestra from Bandung for about a year (or more I think). Right after I graduated on last September I got a chance to see their first symphony concert in this season at Hilton Bandung. Thank to Josh for this.

Tuesday, November 27th: Right two weeks ago, Bandung Philharmonic collaborated with Hilton Bandung to held an event called “If Music Be The Food of Love, Play On”. I came to this one too! (oh it’s so catchy I’m gonna use it as my post title)

So in this event, Hilton Bandung’s executive chef, Chef Tony Saputra collaborated with three musicians from Bandung Philharmonic to give a special and different experience for their audience. Chef Tony make food that inspired by classical songs they play. The three musicians are Cooper Wright on oboe, Bob Stoel on horn and Hazim Suhadi on piano.

And here’s the food. Too bad Chef Tony didn’t come so I couldn’t ask a lot about the ingredients, inspiration, and bla bla bla. But I think it’s ok as long as the food come lol 😛

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I came to Hilton Bandung several times to taste their food and as expected, Chef Tony’s masterpieces are always amazing. The outstanding one for me was the appetizer: Soft Shell Crab. Oh I still can feel it on my tongue! Not to say that the others are dissappointed, but I always have “my best list” for every set-menu I tasted and for that night the winner is Soft Shell Crab!

I met a new friend too at that night, Amanda.

The best song at that night (for me) was D.E.T.I.K by Indonesian Composer, Nathan Iskandar. I love Bengawan Solo by Gesang too! Indonesian classical songs are already beautiful right? And the trio made this more and more beautiful.

Sunday, December 2nd: Five days after that night, Hilton Bandung and Bandung Philharmonic collaborated (again) for a concert titled Holiday Concert. This time, thank to Hilton Bandung, I could come to their press conference (as part of media team :P) to know more everything about the concert will be held.

Sunday came and I was ready.

The concert began with Overture in D, a song composed by another Indonesian talented composer, Filipus Wisnumurti Pranoto. By the way I came to another concert weeks before (it’s Acacia Youth String Orchestra Bandung) and his other work also performed there. Guess what. He, the composer, is 8 years younger than me. Oh my, so young and talented. After that a beautiful piece of Concerto No. 5 (Jan Krtitel Krumpholtz) performed with Rama Widi as a soloist. He is Indonesian finest harpist who has performed with various orchestras around the world.

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At the session two Bandung Philharmonic introduce their choir group and the soloists. There are Regina Handoko (soprano), Heny Janawati (alto), Christopher Abimanyu (tenor) and Ferry Chandra (bass). They sang four Christmas masterpieces: Messiah (Georg Friedrich Handel), Winter Wonderland (Felix Bernard), Dreaming of a White Christmas (Irving Berlin), and Sleigh Ride (Leroy Anderson). The audience are allowed to record the last three songs and upload it on social media. For you who don’t know: you are not allowed to record performances in almost all classical concerts so I can say that it was a super-rare opportunity.

Bob Stoel who played horn at the previous concert was a part of this concert too.

What a happy night! I came to Hilton Bandung often to stay, to taste their food, to see their art exhibition, and I start to like to come for this music thingy. Keep having good events, Hilton Bandung, so I’ll keep coming to you 😛

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At the same time same day, Soomin, my friend from Korea also watched an orchestra concert. It’s HPO Hyundae Philharmonic Orchestra. What a coincident!

It’s always exciting when you have friend with same hobbies. Both of us love drawing and music too! And next week I will see her and have a year-end trip together. Think it will be fun, can’t wait!

Cheers,