A Musical Collaboration-Ayke Agus & Mark Carlson

Celebrating her 20th season with Pacific Serenades, pianist Ayke Agus asked Founder and Artistic Director Mark Carlson to compose a new work for her as she begins her semi-retirement from our organization.

As the three of us sat together in Ayke’s living room, she explained how her current schedule has found her out of town quite often. “I’ve been so busy. I just got back from Chicago, and I gave a masterclass at the St. Petersburg Conservatory before that. I’ve had recitals in Atlanta and La Jolla and in Europe, and I’m very involved in a film being made about Jascha Heifetz. With all of this going on, I feel that I need to focus on my teaching and out-of-town playing and need to step back a little. That doesn’t mean the door is closed for me to return and play on a concert from time to time,” Ayke reassured us.

Ayke wanted to celebrate her 20th season with us in a special way, with a new work for violin and piano by Mark. And as a native of Indonesia, of Chinese, Dutch, and Javanese ancestry, she thought it would be wonderful to have his new piece reflect her Indonesian roots. “I was honored that Ayke thought of me to do this,” Mark said. “And I am very happy to have Mark compose it,” Ayke chimed in.

Batik, the title of the concert, refers to a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. While the definition of the term has been extended to include fabrics that incorporate traditional batik patterns, including series of dots, the word is also rooted in the Javanese conceptualization of the universe.

With the insider’s knowledge of one having grown up on the island of Java, Ayke explained it this way: “The word, in two parts, ba and tik, means ‘to dot’. The idea of dotting is also about life itself, connecting one journey to another, and it completes the life of a person. That’s how we view things-every adventure, every moment is like a dot in that journey.”

Mark had been toying with calling his new piece Batik but was not sure if it was appropriate. On hearing this from Ayke, he instantly realized that it was the ideal name for the piece, which also describes a journey of transformation.

In preparing for this new composition, Mark immersed himself in listening to Indonesian music. “I’ve really come to love this music,” Mark said. But he found that trying to imitate the music on Western instruments to be quite a challenge. “The beautiful, shimmering timbres and tunings of the gamelan don’t translate well to the equal temperament and uniform sound of the piano-an instrument which I love very much and feel very at-home with.” So eventually, he decided to let the tunings, the textures, and the overall effect of the Indonesian music he had heard just seep into his own Western style. “I always enjoy absorbing new sounds, and I have no doubt that this experience has been a transformative one for me.”

“My biggest fear, though, was that the piece would end up not sounding Indonesian enough to Ayke.” But Ayke made it clear that she was very excited to play this new piece by one of her favorite living composers.

Though she grew up steeped in Western music as a prodigy on both violin and piano, Ayke told us that the sounds of traditional Javanese music are everywhere, surrounding you as you go about daily life in Jakarta. “Of course, we heard gamelan music all of the time, and there was always singing, too,” Ayke said. To her, it was all music, whether Western or Indonesian.

She would eventually go on to collaborate with the great violinist Jascha Heifetz, which she documents in her book Heifetz As I Knew Him, so she wasn’t surprised when she learned that her mother, a piano teacher, had played recordings of Heifetz for her, even before her birth. “Later on when I accompanied him, it would seem I could anticipate what he was going to do, in a way that even surprised him!” Ayke said. “I grew up listening to all his recordings. There was always music in the house, live and recorded. My father, who was a Dutch Catholic missionary, would tell me that when string quartets played in our home when I was a child, I’d cry whenever they’d play out of tune!”-which also explains her perfect pitch.

Ayke first played with Pacific Serenades in 1991. “I found Ayke through violinist Yukiko Kamei, who was on the faculty at UCLA at the time. I asked her to play for us and to recommend a pianist,” Mark said. “The premiere on that concert was Paul Reale’s sonata for violin and piano, entitled Celtic Wedding.”

“Oh yes, I remember!” Ayke exclaimed. Though not as experienced in performing premieres of new works at the time, Ayke immediately grew fond of working with a living composer. “It’s a beautiful process. Every single composer you’ve had on the series has been wonderful!” She talked about how the process of learning a new piece-a collaboration among all of the players and the composer-affected her approach to rehearsing traditional repertoire as well. Mark agreed, saying, “Playing a new piece really makes you realize that a classic was written by a living person-and that it is still a living thing.”

“I’ve also learned a great deal collaborating with Ayke on my compositions,” Mark shared. “She really helped me to understand how much more fun-and successful-a new piece is when the performers are involved in decisions about how it is to be played. I enjoy it when someone asks, ‘How about if we do it like this, instead?’ And whether I agree or disagree, it makes me happy to have their input.”

The relationship between performer and composer is a very fruitful one for both. “Many composers wrote for Heifetz, like Waxman and Korngold, and Heifetz often offered many suggestions,” Ayke explained. “Though it may not say ‘edited by Heifetz,’ he had a good deal of influence on the pieces. I see that same process when we are working with a composer, and I enjoy it very much.”

Having performed with Pacific Serenades for 20 seasons now, Ayke and the other musicians have become close. “After playing with them for so long, you learn more about them, and instead of just making music, you’re really collaborating with them,” Ayke said. “You are friendly, you joke around, but most of all, you really love playing music together. And we consider the composer as one of the collaborators as well.”

It was fun to hear Ayke and Mark share stories of how certain programs came to be, about certain new pieces that were especially challenging, especially fun, or both, about the many long-term and close personal connections that have been made with Pacific Serenades musicians and supporters, about their own friendship, forged in a shared love for the organization and for years of making music together.

Summing up all of this, Ayke said, “Playing with Pacific Serenades is very gratifying. It’s like a family reunion, like coming home again!”