Pictures of Life, a chamber recital tracing the arc of human experience from childhood to maturity, will be presented by pianist Toru Oyama and violinist Giovani Biga on 24 January 2026 at 7.30pm at Balai Resital Kertanegara, offering Jakarta audiences an evening shaped by narrative and repertoire.
The programme doesn’t begin with a grand concept, the musicians explain, but with instinct. As pieces are selected, a connecting thread began to surface, inspired by Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life. What emerges is a recital structured as a sequence of emotional stages, or as the duo puts it, a set of “pictures” that mirror the way people grow, falter, connect, and eventually find their footing.
The opening movement is Childhood, introduced through Mozart’s Sonata K.376. Light, playful, and unburdened, the work is framed as a portrait of early life, when curiosity outweighs anxiety and the present moment feels endlessly elastic. The mood darkens in the second chapter, The First Crisis, as Bloch’s Baal Shem enters the programme. Here the recital turns inward, tracing the turbulence of adolescence, the sting of early failure, and the sense of spiritual searching that comes with it. The musicians describe this phase as unavoidable, a necessary passage before any form of resolution can appear.
After the interval, the recital moves into Connection with Schumann’s Romanze, capturing the intoxication and vulnerability of falling for another person. It is a shorter chapter, but one that carries emotional weight, serving as a bridge between youthful upheaval and the steadier terrain of adulthood. The evening closes with Fauré’s Grand Sonata, presented as Maturity, a work that holds complexity without losing direction. This final movement reflects resilience shaped by setbacks, recalibrations, and the long patience of experience.
Behind the programme are two performers with a shared interest in storytelling through music. Oyama and Biga have approached this recital less as a conventional concert and more as a guided passage through familiar inner states, inviting listeners to recognise parts of their own histories in each section. “We realised that we weren’t just playing pieces,” they note in the programme text. “We were painting a portrait of the human experience.”
Tickets are available online at jcodigitalconcerthall.com
For enquires, contact +62 811 8747 755 via WhatsApp or email at ticketing@theresonanz.com
