Otto Sidharta

Otto Sidharta (Born Bandung November 6, 1955) is an Indonesian Composer. He is known for his electronic music.

Otto Sidharta finished his post-graduate study in composition and electronic music composition at Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam under the guidance of Professor Ton de Leeuw.

Sidharta's interest in using environmental sounds to express his musical ideas developed when he was a student at the Jakarta Institute of Arts (Institut Kesenian Jakarta). He performed his first electronic music piece, Kemelut, based on water sounds in the First Indonesian Young Composer Festival (Pekan Komponis Indonesia) in 1979. In 1982 he collected some nature and animal sounds on Nias, in the Borneo (Kalimantan) jungle, and other remote places in Indonesia. These sounds were used as material for some of his works such as Ngendau, Hutan Plastik and East wind.

Beside being a composer, Sidharta is Chairman of both the Music Committee of Jakarta Art Council (Komite Musik Dewan Kesenian Jakarta) and Indonesian Composers Association (Asosiati Komponis Indonesia). He teaches at Jakarta Institute of Arts (Institut Kesenian Jakarta) and in Cantus (Music Education and Information Center, Jakarta). Furthermore, he is the Music Director for the National Symphony Orchestra (Orkes Symphony Nasional).

For Supplement/Upstream, Sidharta created Wind of trade, a soundscape based on the sounds and voices associated with Dutch and Indonesian culture, such as sounds from nature, markets, street vendors, trains, ships and children playing.