As you may or may not know, I'm a singer who loves to help organize projects for a better cause. This time I was asked to help with setting up a group of Christian Javanese musicians and singers from Suriname, they could be from different churches as well.😊
My friend Alleyanto Arga talked about this project ever since I joined him and the group he made for the Easter Project. He wanted to post Javanese gospel covers in commemoration of Javanese Immigration Day in Suriname (9th August). I got a message a few months earlier via Facebook that he was ready and certain that he wanted to form a new Javanese gospel band with participants from different churches.
Arga asked me to write down Javanese gospel songs that I knew would be good to cover and give a new twist to it, since most "famous" Javanese gospel songs are quite old, sung by older people and the video quality of the songs aren't that high.
After a lot of planning and scouting for people, we had our group. We had 9 people in the band; 2 keyboard players, 1 bass guitar player, 1 electric guitar player, 1 drummer and 4 singers (1 guy and 3 ladies). I won't announce their names yet. Our "band practice" and shoot was at Alleyanto's church "Gemeente Immanuel". Band practice started on the 12th of July 2022. Our final video and audio shoot was planned on the 30th of July 2022.
The purpose of this project is to spread the gospel of God through music with a cultural appreciation and show our gratitude to our ancestors who suffered in the past due to the colonial time periods. The Commemoration Javanese Immigration Day is the day that reminds us that on the 9th of August 1890, the first Javanese contract workers set foot on Surinamese soil as coolies. They made the crossing with the steamship Prins Alexander. The last ship, the Kota Gedeh, arrived in 1939. In this 49-year period, more than 32,000 Javanese emigrated to Suriname.
I am not allowed to spill the tea yet... 🤗So if you're curious to know which songs we covered and/or how many we did you have to look out for a future blog post.
More about this project coming soon!
I am grateful to be #alive and I love to learn more about my culture.
Thank you for reading my blog post and I hope you enjoyed it.❤️