In conjunction with National Music Day, which falls on March 9, the Indonesian Music Museum (MMI) in Malang, East Java, plans to ask the government to honor local musicians.

“We will propose 350 names to 34 governors across Indonesia so they can select traditional and modern musicians from their respective regions,” MMI chairman Hengki Herwanto said recently.

The 350 musicians listed came from the data and recordings collected by the MMI, Hengki said. He added that the list could still be expanded as the museum has yet to acquire records by musicians from Bengkulu, North Kalimantan, West Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and West Papua.

“Still, we will propose the list to the governors,” he said.

Founded in 2015, the MMI currently has a total of 26,109 items in its collection. Among them are physical recordings comprising 15,000 cassettes and 2,600 vinyl records.

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Other collection items include books, magazines, memorabilia, brochures and 70 traditional musical instruments from across Indonesia, Hengki said.

Most of the artifacts, he said, were donations from communities. Others were obtained through online purchases or flea markets.

Among the collection items considered precious are a duplicate vinyl record of the Indonesia Raya national anthem produced in the country's first recording studio, Lokananta in Surakarta, Central Java. Another is a vinyl record of legendary vocalist Lilis Suryani’s singing the controversial song, “Genjer-Genjer”. The Javanese folk song was linked to the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1965.

“The records should be seen from their historical sides, as a cultural heritage collection,” Hengki said. (swa/wng)