Amir Pasaribu

[2][6] He was born into an upper class Batak family; his father, Mangaradja Salomon Pasaribu, was a government official (assistant wedana).

[9][6] He began to make a lot of money working as a piano accompanist and also had some of his early compositions performed by student music groups.

[6] He then worked as a cellist aboard a Japanese cruise ship for a time, sailing between Japan, Australia and Hawaii, and saving up money to go to music school abroad.

[5][2][12] He was hit hard by the death of his friend and musical colleague Cornel Simanjuntak who was shot in 1946 during the Indonesian National Revolution.

[2][17] In September 1950 he founded the League of Composers (Liga Komponis), an organization that would protect copyrighted compositions, but relaunched it in December 1950 as the Indonesian Musician's Union (Ikatan Pemusik Indonesia), which at its start had around 80 members.

[19] He had been advocating since the 1940s for more support for the fine arts and the development of a more rigorous musical education system as it existed in European countries.

In August 1953 he became chair of a new organization in Jakarta, the Musjawarat Musik Indonesia (Indonesian Music Society) which aimed at supporting that development.

[21] In 1954 he traveled to Beijing as a Ministry representative to study Chinese music and opera and to do research for the opening of a fine arts institute.

[19] Starting in 1955 he also became co-editor, along with HB Jassin, Zaini and Trisno Sumardjo, of a new Jakarta arts and culture magazine called Seni.

[19] During that time he was associated with LEKRA, the Communist-affiliated cultural organization, and was friends with prominent members such as Sitor Situmorang and Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

[3] In 1968, following the Transition to the New Order and the banning of LEKRA, and possibly for economic reasons, he left Indonesia for Surinam, which at that time was still a part of the Netherlands.