Gardika Gigih is an Indonesian composer, pianist, and soundscape researcher. After studying music composition at the Indonesian Institute of Arts, Gardika’s interest in the intersection of music, society, and culture led him to pursue a Masters Degree in Cultural Anthropology. His works, which have been performed internationally, span numerous genres, from concerts to contemporary improvisation, film scoring, and sound ethnography. His debut album “Nyala” (2017), released by Sorge Records, received widespread acclaim and was named a top album of the year by The Jakarta Post.
In 2019, Gardika received a fellowship from The Japan Foundation Asia Center to conduct soundscape research as cultural narratives in Southeast Asia and Japan. This research has been published in www.lostinsound.art
From January to June 2023, he is staying in New York as an Asian Cultural Council Fellow to study cultural diversity and cross-cultural collaboration in the New York music scene.
Last May at the British Library, his composition "Mimpi Owa: A Duet with Javanese Gibbons" won the “Sound of the Year Awards” for the Composed with Sound category. It’s initiated by the BBC Radiophonic Institute and the Museum of Sounds in partnership with Accidental Records.
With a deep passion working with sounds, Gardika is continuing to develop new compositions and electroacoustic works inspired by his global research. During the Odyssée Residency in Abbaye de Noirlac, Gardika will create “Mikrokosmos” (Liturgie de la Nature en Nous), a series of music based on magical nature soundscape around Noirlac and combine it with instruments from various cultures.
Residence's project :
"During the Odyssée Residency at the Abbaye de Noirlac, I wanted to create compositions with the beautiful nature sounds around the Abbaye and collaborate them with the sounds of musical instruments from various cultures, such as the piano, Korean daegeum, and gamelan from Indonesia.
It only took two days since I arrived in Noirlac and found this place very peaceful and soothing to my soul. I really enjoy cycling through the nature of Noirlac, opening my senses wide, seeing and listening to the various sounds of birds, insects, wind, bushes and trees, water, and many more... I wanted to collaborate with them. It feels like there are no more boundaries between me and the nature, a very spiritual experience.
"Mikrokosmos" (Liturgie de la Nature en Nous) is my reflection as a composer on the relationship between nature and us amidst the current climate crisis situation. What is the universality in us? What can we do for our future?
I feel so grateful to be able to work with magical nature sound recordings around Noirlac by the legendary audio-naturalist, Fernand Deroussen, and later combine them with my own field recordings and the sounds of musical instruments from various cultures that I will compose during this two-month residency.
“Mikrokosmos” will be presented to audiences in the form of a sound installation and concert in Abbaye de Noirlac, then an album for the global listeners. I hope this work will resonate among us like a prayer."