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Twilite Orchestra pays tribute to The Beatles

Standing ovation: Sandhy Sondoro (from left), Once Mekel, emcee Sys NS, Oddie Agam, conductor Addie MS, Angel Pieters and Aqi Singgih receive warm applause from the audience

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, November 22, 2016

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Twilite Orchestra pays tribute to The Beatles

Standing ovation: Sandhy Sondoro (from left), Once Mekel, emcee Sys NS, Oddie Agam, conductor Addie MS, Angel Pieters and Aqi Singgih receive warm applause from the audience. The concert at Ciputra Artpreneur Theater, South Jakarta, on Saturday was the last of three commemorative events held to celebrate the orchestra’s 25th anniversary.

Running a high-cost symphony orchestra is never easy, yet Twilite Orchestra had the audience on its feet when it celebrated its 25th anniversary over the weekend.

The cheery tune of “Yellow Submarine” started to play as a big screen flashed an image of the titular subject in the background in what was a lively opening of Twilite Orchestra’s celebratory concert at the Ciputra Artpreneur Theater in South Jakarta on Saturday.

In medley fashion, another five of The Beatles’ hits followed, depicting important episodes of the legendary British band that took over the world in the early 1960s. The powerful renditions of “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, “Ticket to Ride”, “Penny Lane” and “Got to Get You Into My Life” led to the medley’s climax before it ended with the legendary band’s breakup song “Let It Be”.

It was only the beginning of the over two-hour The Beatles-themed concert, the last of three installments this year to commemorate the orchestra’s 25 years of bringing in world music to the country and in reverse introducing Indonesian folk songs overseas.

The first installment in February was a tribute to John Williams’ work for blockbuster movies, while the second installment in August was Simfoni Negriku, which showcased Indonesian folk songs — both were held at the concert hall of Aula Simfonia in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.

“We chose the theme because The Beatles have inspired so many people and musicians of all ages and across the board to this day, including me. When I was a kid, my mother gifted me the vinyl record of Magical Mystery Tour. I’ve wanted to become a musician after listening to it and here we are now,” said orchestra leader and conductor Addie MS, thanking his mother in the audience who he said had hardly ever attended any of his concerts.

Unlike the two previous concerts, The Beatles-themed concert on Saturday was less formal with the audience singing along and taking pictures and videos throughout the show.

Artists of different eras, all of whom are known to have been influenced by The Beatles, joined the stage with their own renditions of the band’s songs during the two shows at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Oddie Agam, the co-founder of the orchestra in 1991, alongside Addie and Indra Usmansyah Bakrie, appeared with the golden-colored suits made famous by the band in “Magical Mystery Tour”. They belted out the title song on piano followed by “The Long and Winding Road” and “Lady Madonna”. He mistook the order of the songs, but the laughing Addie and the concert master calmly played along.

Aqi Singgih, the vocalist of pop band Alexa, then took the stage with his soulful rendition of “Yesterday”, “Yellow Submarine” and the heartrending “She’s Leaving Home” before Oddie joined him for “Golden Slumber”.

The unique vocals of Sandhy Sandoro and a lot of improvisation to the lyrics of “All the Lonely People”, “Eleanor Rigby” and “Oh! Darling” garnered big applauses from the audience, even if he glanced over at the prompter far too often.

Young singer Angel Pieters presented what was probably the highlight of the first show that evening with her blues renditions of “Something”, “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Here, There and Everywhere”.

Mekel then took his turn with “Let It Be”, “Got to Get You into My Life” and “Get Back” before closing his section in a duet with Sandy singing “Come Together”. All artists performed “All You Need is Love” to close the concert and returned for encores to perform “Hey Jude” and “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”.

The country’s most popular The Beatles cover band G-pluck, who entertained the audience at the opening of the concert, also performed throughout the show as musicians and alto vocal accompaniment for the featuring artists.

As much as the artists pulled their weight to make the evening worth remembering, it was the orchestra, the main reason the audience gave a standing ovation at the end of the show, that took the spotlight. The brass section for the trumpet parts in “Penny Lane”, for example, were performed with gusto and the string musicians delivered The Beatles’ evergreen songs beautifully.

The individual skills and the choice of musical arrangements are perhaps among the primary reasons for Twilite Orchestra’s continued existence after 25 years, but as Addie put it, “we received a lot of support all these years but above it all, it is God’s will that we’re still here. So thank you God”.

— Photo by JP/Donny Fernando

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