JACK Quartet: Nursalim Yadi Anugerah

Program Notes

Nursalim Yadi Anugerah
Aphid and a Palm on the Top of Orange Cliff (2025)

The existence of palm oil plantations on the island of Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia is driven by a presence that is both fickle and contradictory—simultaneously an occupying force and a source of neglect. Occupation and abandonment, order and disorder, theft and calculability, alignment and fracture all coexist in a rough-and-tumble assemblage where political economy and technologies of power are at play simultaneously.

This work connects the images and narratives of the palm oil plantation to the kadedek, an ancient Kalimantan instrument. The confrontation between the drones of eight kadedeks and a string quartet, using a computer that enables the musicians to control (or lose control of) the kadedek, creates a sonic dialogue and metaphor that focuses on the suffering, domination, exploitation, and oppression faced by the inhabitants of Kalimantan (both human and non-human), and brings them into the liminal space in a collective reflection shared by the musicians and listener.