Slamet A. Sjukur (30 June 1935 – 24 March 2015)[1] was the founding father of contemporary Indonesian music. He studied and worked in Paris under Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux. He was a lecturer at IKJ (Institut Kesenian Jakarta) but due to his unconventional ideas, he eventually had to leave. [2] He lives in Jakarta, and Surabaya as a freelance composer, teacher, and music critic. Sjukur developed the idea of minimax in music, with his compositions notable for their minimal constellation of sounds and numerological basis, indicating his interest in a new "ecology of music".[3] This concept views limitations not as obstructions but as challenges to work with simple material, maximally.
His honors include the Bronze Medal from the Festival de Jeux d’Automne in Dijon (1974), the Golden Record from the Académie Charles Cros in France (1975, for Angklung), and the Zoltán Kodály Commemorative Medal in Hungary (1983). More recently, Gatra named him a Pioneer of Alternative Music (1996) and he was made an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2000) and a life member of the Akademi Jakarta (2002).[4] Some of his prominent students include Gilang Ramadhan, Soe Tjen Marching, and Otto Sidharta