I met the Indonesian group Samba Sunda during the TFF Rudolstadt/Germany in 2003. I was working on this piece (see my CD Kamalenya Nr 12) when they stormed into my room in order to see who was playing Sundanese music. They did not want to believe that I was playing Tusia music from Africa; I had never met Sundanese people nor heard their music before.

Later, when they were practising, I was surprised: how on earth could these people play Tusia music so well, without having met Tusia people nor having studied their music before? Thereupon they said that they did not know what I was talking about, they had been playing Sundanese music all the time.

In 2004 I visited them in Bandung and we gave a beautiful concert together. Since then I am permanently homesick for Indonesia. Perhaps A.M. Jones (Africa and Indonesia; E.J.Brill,Leiden 1964) was right all the time…