For the Love of Music

Fifteen years ago, Raden Mas Adrian Prabava was a 20-year-old aspiring musician who set out for Europe to fulfill his dream of cantatas, grand concert halls and classic repertoires. Today, he is a sought-after conductor throughout Europe. Maggie Tiojakin meets the maestro on a brief return to his hometown.

I had expected Adrian Prabava to be the stereotypical music conductor, in his 40s, dressed in a formal suit and with a no-nonsense, humorless approach to interviews. Dour and dull. But when his cab pulled up in front of the South Jakarta coffee shop, I had a hunch I could be wrong. And I was.

Adrian — he changed the spelling of his surname from Prabawa to give it an international, more easily understood sound — is an energetic and brilliant man in his mid-30s. Dressed in a black polo shirt and a pair of denims, he also turned out to be quite the conversationalist. The scheduled short interview ran over time as he reminisced about his childhood, aspirations and life-changing points in his career.

He was drawn to music as a boy while watching local showings from NHK, Japan’s leading public broadcaster, which often aired Japanese musical shows and concerts.

“I was three years old when I saw, for the first time, Hiroyuki Iwaki conducting an orchestra,” he reminisces. “He was flailing his arms in many directions, and he sweated a lot. So I thought, ‘Who is this guy? And what is he doing?’”

Eventually, he understood who Hiroyuki was and became one of his biggest, and probably youngest, fans at a time when most of his peers were still playing with their G.I. Joes. Then came the violin.  

“I was obsessed with violins,” he says. He was nine at the time. “I collected pictures of violins and wondered what kind of music it would play. And after I terrorized my parents with my wünsch [wish in German] to own a violin, my dad gave me one as a present.”

What followed was a childhood full of dreams and discussions about Gustav Mahler and the history of classical music. Nevertheless, Adrian’s journey to become the renowned Kapellmeister [resident conductor] that he is now was far from easy.

The alumnus of Kanisius College admitted how, at the age of 15, he gave up playing the violin because “it seemed hopeless”. Consequently, Adrian changed gears, joined a rock band and played the electric bass. But after three years, he went back to his first love.  

“Someone asked me to play at Sahid Jaya,” he says of an experience that opened his eyes to what he wanted most from life: to become a professional violinist. A year later, at the age of 19, he was appointed as a concert master in a performance with a Jakarta-based orchestra called Ensemble Jakarta.

Adrian then felt the need to go out into the world and hone his talent. He chose Germany.

“My knowledge was poor — I had never seen an opera, an operetta or a ballet. I had never even heard of Bach’s Cantata. I had to leave and obtain that knowledge.”

In 1992, Kompas newspaper published his profile as a young and promising violinist who needed both moral and financial support to help him realize his life-long dream. To his disappointment, most of the calls that came to his house were from strangers who congratulated his mother for having her son featured in the national paper. Still, no money.

“My father finally came through for me,” Adrian recalls tenderly of his late parent. “He bought me a one-way ticket to Germany and got me a new violin.”

In 1994, he was admitted to Detmold Conservatory in Germany. The eight years that followed proved to be very difficult.

First, he had to cram into one year’s study what his peers at Detmold had been studying for 10. In the summer, Adrian worked double shifts washing dishes at Indonesian restaurants in Frankfurt to support himself.

Reflecting on the experience, Adrian letsout a hearty laugh. “I don’t know how I survived,” he mumbles between roars of laughter, “but I sure am glad it’s over.”

His foray into conducting started in 2002, when he was given the opportunity to study under Prof. Eiji Oue at the Conservatory of Music and Theatre in Hanover, beating out 17 other applicants from around the world. He put aside his violin for the conductor’s baton.

As the first Kapellmeister and associate music director at the Theatre and Philharmonie Thüringen in Germany, he holds roughly three concerts a week and spends each day rehearshing Tosca, Johann Strauss’s Wiener Blut and many other classical music pieces.

His visit home this year was his third since he departed in 1992. It was intentional, on his part, to distance himself from Jakarta. “I never miss this city. I was so happy when I left with a one-way ticket in my hand.”

Asked if he had a chance to see the performance of a local orchestra recently, Adrian shakes his head. He declares he has no idea what is going on in the music industry here, except for catching the occasional performance by Paris-based Anggun on European television. “I’m so proud of her,” he says.

Later, when I ask whether he would consider relocating back to Indonesia for the sake of his country, he answers with a rhetorical statement: “I wonder if India would ask Zubin Mehta to come back.”

Some Indonesians may consider him arrogant, if not because of his love of “high-brow” classical music, then because of his unwavering commitment to it. He claimed to be unfazed by what people may say about him. “I’m just a tourist here now,” he says with a shrug.

The next day, he leaves Jakarta to return to his usual routine. From Paris to Vienna, the world’s capital of classical music, he stands on a podium facing up to 60 musicians and dictates the tempo, volume and balance of the entire orchestra. Behind him, hundreds of guests sit in silence, absorbed by the magical world of the symphony, whispering among themselves, “Bravo, maestro, bravo!”

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