Sinta Wullur

Sinta Wullur is an Indonesian-Dutch composer, pianist and singer based in Amsterdam. She was born in Bandung and moved to the Netherlands in 1968. Her work brings different musical styles, disciplines and cultures together. She describes her activities as compositions, music projects, music lessons and ensembles in which she works as a singer and pianist, and says they are all about bridging cultures.

She studied piano and composition at the Sweelinck Conservatory, then continued at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Her teachers there included Theo Loevendie and Louis Andriessen. She also studied electronic music, and gamelan and singing with several teachers in Bali and Java. She received her degree in composition in 1991. She has founded gamelan groups in the Netherlands, including Tirta and Irama, and has sung with the gamelan ensemble Widosari since 1992.

Since 1989 Wullur has drawn connections between Indian ragas and Indonesian music in her compositions. Her projects include Ritual Bells, Global Gongs, Raga Impressions and Ensemble Global Gongs. Global Gongs is a gong installation with 80 large hanging gongs and large and small lying gongs, set up in flexible arrangements and supplemented with gamelan instruments. Her workshops on it explore the ritual and spiritual power of gamelan gongs in the tradition of minimal music, and no knowledge of notation or music is needed.

Her belief is that music goes beyond the idiom of words and is free of the language barrier that divides the world. She holds that new music born from the cross-fertilization of cultures can connect the different traditions now present in our society. The Dutch newspaper NRC wrote that "Wullur beschikt over durf en elan, en haar theatrale inslag is onmiskenbaar" (Wullur has daring and verve, and her theatrical streak is unmistakable). Besides composing and performing, she teaches, coaches and gives workshops.