Maya Hasan, A Harpist After Our Hearts

Jakarta - When Maya Hasan’s mother was pregnant with her in Hong Kong in late 1971, a fortune teller told her parents that if the baby was a boy, they would live ordinary lives.

But if the baby was a girl, the fortune teller predicted that the family would lead happy, successful lives.

“It turned out to be true,” said Maya, smiling, her long black hair pulled up in a loose knot, with a few flyaway tendrils.

During an interview at a South Jakarta coffee shop, Maya wore long pants and a beige cardigan over a simple black top, and she sipped on a coffee crowned with whipped cream.

The fortune teller’s prediction scratched the surface, but he didn’t reckon on Maya growing up to elevate the status of the harp — in a country where the instrument was decidedly unfashionable — by filling the airwaves and concert halls with her melodious music.

Maya became interested in music at an early age, initially learning the violin and the flute.

“One day I saw a poster of different instruments in an orchestra, and it was the first time I’d ever seen a harp,” she said.

Maya was 14 years old when she asked het teacher how to get hold of a harp.

The teacher referred Maya to Heidi Awuy, who was then the only harpist in town.

“I contacted her, and I guess she was a bit shocked,” Maya said, laughing. “She probably thought, who is that weird little girl calling me, insisting on learning how to play the harp.”

Maya was determined to convince both Awuy to teach her and her parents to allow her to switch instruments.

“They immediately asked me, ‘OK, compared to the violin, how much more will this new hobby cost?’ With the threat that I was not allowed to switch to another instrument again, they eventually agreed to meet Heidi,” Maya said.

“My first harp was actually one of Heidi’s old harps, which she’d brought over from Canada [Awuy’s father is Indonesian and her mother Canadian], and we bought it secondhand.”

Maya took harp lessons for three years, one or two times a week, but didn’t neglect her other interests.

“I still wanted to hang out with my friends, I was also part of our marching band at school,” she said. “Plus, there wasn’t anybody else playing the harp, so I was pretty much on my own. There wasn’t any community for harpists, and Heidi was my only role model. So it was kind of hard.”

And so, after she finished high school, Maya decided to pursue her interest overseas.

“I had always wanted to go to the States,” she said. “For no reason, just because. I know that doesn’t sound very impressive right now, but that’s the way it was.”

Maya sent an audition tape to Willamette University in Oregon and was accepted. Living and studying in the United States however, wasn’t what she’d pictured.

“I had cultural shock,” she said. “Being a music major was harder than I’d thought.”

In addition to practicing for several hours a day, Maya still had classes to go to, and was also working a side job to scrape some extra money together.

“Basically my life was over,” Maya said, laughing. “It required a lot of library time, not to mention all the concerts that were compulsory for us to attend.”

After three years in Oregon, Maya returned to Jakarta in 1993.

It wasn’t easy making a living as a harpist in a country where many people had never heard harp music before.

“I had to do all kinds of self-promotion,” Maya said.

“I went to local radio stations, bringing my own CDs of harp music, and asking them to play them, just to make harp music a bit more common in Indonesia. I also approached every existing orchestra, handing them my CV and literally begging them to play scores that included harp music, so I had the chance to play with them.”

Things were rough for a while, but Maya proved that persistence pays off when she began landing more and more gigs. Playing classical music only at the beginning, she later branched out to other genres.

“I do jazz, pop, even rock,” she said. “I am a person who likes to try something new.”

Maya has played with major Indonesian orchestras like the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra, the Twilite Orchestra, the Surabaya Symphony Orchestra and the Erwin Gutawa Orchestra. She is also a member of the World Harp Ensemble with harpists from Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico and the United States.

She collaborated with pop band Padi on one of its biggest hits, “Kasih tak Sampai” (“Unrequited Love”), in 2001.

She continues to remain in close contact with her teachers in the United States, who keep her up to date because it is still difficult sometimes to be on the cutting edge of harp music when you are based in Indonesia.

“Of course it is much better today than when I first started to play,” Maya said. “But I guess sometimes people still think that playing the harp is kind of weird.”

Today, Maya still performs on a regular basis, but also enjoys teaching her students — at the moment she has 10 — and recently discovered the healing properties of music.

Harp music has a positive effect on people, Maya said, not only by listening, but also when they play it themselves.

Maya is also trying to make harps more affordable to Indonesians by working with American companies to import harps that are cheaper than the ones currently available here.

Even though her journey as a harpist hasn’t always been smooth, Maya doesn’t regret the day she walked up to her parents and insisted on playing the harp.

“I consider myself the luckiest person in the world,” Maya said, smiling. “Playing the harp makes me happy, and being able to make a career out of my hobby puts a smile on my face every morning when I wake up.” Katrin Figge

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.com

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