(b Medan, Sumatra, 1956). Indonesian composer. Beginning his musical career as a drummer in a rock group, he studied ethnomusicology at the University of North Sumatra. He also studied music at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, and composition with Alvin Lucier at the Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conneticut. After studying in America he produced many works for electronic media alone and in combination with acoustic instruments. A member of the Batak people, he has studied and absorbed many elements of their traditional music into his own work. This bringing together of two very different musical worlds has made his compositions highly distinctive. His use of ritual forms is a characteristic feature: in Nerhen Surasura (1992) for tape and instruments the players are required to be in a state of trance before beginning to perform. A composition teacher and dean of the arts faculty at the Huria Kristen Batak Prostestant Nommensen University in Medan, Pasaribu is an active and influential figure in the contemporary music scene in north Sumatra. His percussion group Medan Percussion Ensemble appears annually at the popular International Jakarta Percussion Festival.
FRANKI RADEN