Category: Recordings

Peni Candra Rini album Wulansih released

Available now for free streaming and digital or vinyl purchase on Bandcamp, frequent visiting artist Peni Candra Rini‘s album Wulansih was officially released Friday July 12, 2024.

From label New Amsterdam’s press release:

The 8 songs on Wulansih exert a deep sense of spiritual calm and act as, in Rini’s words, “a reminder that you are still human, listening to expressions of other humans.” Her music is deeply inspired by the poetry of Rumi and Hafez, Wayang Kulit (Indonesian shadow play), and Serat, the tradition of Sufi thought in Central Javanese court poetry. Rini says that Wulansih aims to “express my inner feelings, my soul, to provide inspiration to younger Indonesian composers, and to introduce Indonesian new compositions to new global audiences.”

Rumput is featured on her original composition Warasih, recorded at Montrose Recording in Richmond. Andy features on every track as performer, co-arranger, and co-producer. A minimalist treatment of the traditional keroncong tune Jenang Gula features selo and guitar from Andy and John plus beautiful subtle additions from Shahzad Ismaily on guitar and Curt Sydnor on synthesizer. Other tracks feature experimental compositions and group improvisations featuring Andy, Shahzad and a rotating crew of stellar guest musicians at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn.

New album with Peni in the works!

We’ve been working on new recordings of Javanese experimental music adapted for electric keroncong, incorporating sounds of surf-rock, avant-noise, and metal to accompany Peni’s wild, beautiful singing!

Compositions by Peni Candra Rini, Danis Sugiyanto, I Wayan Sadra, and Zoel Mistortoify.

It’s being mixed and mastered by John Dieterich of Deerhoof, who’s cranking up the amps and the experimentalism for a sound unlike anything we’ve heard. We’re still working out when and how it will be released, but catch a preview at one of our upcoming shows!

Maduswara: Peni’s commission for Kronos Quartet

Peni Candra Rini, our guest artistic director for this season, has just premiered at Carnegie Hall a composition commissioned by Kronos Quartet as part of their 50 for the Future program. Congratulations, Peni! Sukses!

New York Classical Review observes:

Rini joined Kronos for Maduswara, singing and playing the rebab…. Rini’s tradition is Javanese music, and Maduswara was an involving evocation of this. Rini’s writing for the quartet kept the traditional rhythms while opening up the textures so that every vocal inflection, bent note, and move from a pentatonic to a Western major scale—and back—had an extra expressive edge.

Photo by Peter McElhinney for Style Weekly

Peni and Kronos recently joined in a panel discussion at the University of Richmond regarding her composition and their process of adapting it. Andy asked her to sing a passage from it, and the effect was wondrous: the members of Kronos, no strangers to awe-inspiring talent, all spoke of being deeply moved by the power of her voice in close proximity, and began to think aloud about how that sensation might change their performance technique, to represent not just the “flotando” (floating, flute-like) timbre but also the deep resonance.

Update: the truly great news following this premiere is that Kronos has commissioned 4 additional compositions from Peni!

Peni Candra Rini, guest artistic director

The Kronos Quartet: Five Decades (David Harrington: violin, John Sherba: violin, Hank Dutt: viola, Paul Wiancko: cello) with special guest Indonesian composer Peni Candra Rini perform a selection from five decades of material in the Barbican Hall on Thursday 19 Oct. 2023
Photo by Mark Allan/BBC

Peni Candra Rini, PhD (b. 1983) is a renowned Javanese singer, composer, and faculty member at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. In Spring 2023 Peni taught as a Visiting Fulbright Artist-Scholar at the University of Richmond. When visiting and touring the US, she completes residencies as guest-director of Rumput and Gamelan Raga Kusuma, and joins us in performances and recordings.

Raised in an artistic family in a small fishing village in East Java, Peni first began studying voice at the age of 5 under her father, a village shadow master. She later moved to the Central Javanese city of Solo to study at the Indonesian National Conservatory of the Arts, where she completed her doctorate and was hired as faculty in 2020. She is a master of several traditional forms and is regarded as one of Indonesia’s most daring young composers, one of only a handful of female composers in the majority-Muslim nation.

The Kronos String Quartet commissioned and is currently performing her latest chamber work, Maduswara, which they premiered this year at Carnegie Hall. She is a former recipient of grants from the Asian Cultural Council, a two-time grantee of the US State Department’s One Beat Program and in 2022 was named an Aga Khan Foundation laureate of the arts. She was a principal performer on our first major production and tour, Shadow Ballads, in 2016, along with past guest artistic director Danis Sugiyanto, Gamelan Raga Kusuma co-founder Gusti Sudarta, and folk duo Anna and Elizabeth.

In addition to her university teaching Peni is owner and executive director of Candrarini’s Gamelan, Sentana Art Music Production, and Jagad Sentana Art Foundation.

Dust Up magazine reviews our debut album

Dust Up reviewed our debut album Rumput in their feature Bandcamp of the Week.

…melodies and break-downs that make Indonesia feel like a short highway ride away, instead of on the opposite side of a globe….

While that’s something that specifically speaks to us in 2017, it’s also a timeless inspiration, which is ultimately what Rumput has beautifully created here.