She worries she is not ambitious enough and despite writing music to be played in conjunction with the next Commonwealth Games doesn’t feel she has ‘a long term plan’!

Saidah is like a delicate, composed steel butterfly whose strength is only felt when it comes to anything musical. She is definite in what she wants and rejects a description of herself as modest. ‘Modesty suggests you don’t know your own mind, and musically I do.’

Fifteen years ago, Saidah was involved with the world of law and within the next fifteen wants to move into producing film music. She feels she was able to make the transition from lawyer to composer ‘because my hobby gave so much pleasure it seemed a natural thing to do. I had some reservations because the income from law is good and the money for contemporary composing is non-existent at the beginning. I wanted to make my music work and pay for itself. I never wanted to be seen as someone whose husband had to support her while she ‘swanned’ around.”

She met her husband when they were performing as lovers in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and as theatre director Jo Kukathas (who cast them) once told her ‘you’ve been lovers ever since.’

Despite the harmony in their relationship, her husband’s musical taste is not the same as hers. ‘He prefers honest to goodness 70’s style dance music. Mine just doesn’t turn him on!’ She says he has ‘been truly supportive’ and, when asked about his input, Saidah said it was something she had never before been asked but was really grateful for the chance to express her thanks to him. “If it hadn’t been for Charon’s support I could have never made that switch from law to music. When I feel I can’t do something, he is always there for me emotionally. I’ve never expressed that before, but I owe him a great deal.’

She feels the definition of ‘who Saidah is musically’ has changed since giving up practicing law. ‘Up to ’95, my work showed affinity with jazz idioms, but from ’96 it turned more Asian. You grow up being impressionable, then search for your own way of expression. Everything I’ve done since ’96 has been very Saidah.’

She is a hard worker, yet, when asked where she gains inspiration, laughingly admits, ‘When the deadline comes around, I work well!’

She feels ‘personal suffering and tragedies’ are reflected in her music ‘I’ve grown up most within these last 5 years and feel I am getting musically better all the time. I think it’s really exciting to be in Malaysia today, because there are honest attempts to address the impulse of what it is to be Malaysian. It’s not so much using traditional instruments as saying -- this is how I feel; these are the influences we’ve got.’

She was recently in Australia working with ’The Song Company’, an experience she found inspiring. What she discovered through them and Artistic Director Roland Peelman was ‘dedication, focus and pure joy in music making. There was fun, humour and passion in what is usually humdrum rehearsal. It was really uplifting.’

Saidah confesses she loves writing music for voices as she feels, ‘although it’s a cliché, the human voice is the most expressive instrument of all.’ So being given the voices of The Song Company was ‘ like being given a Ferrari and told to drive it round the block. You write something and when you hear them singing, it’s three times better than you heard it in your head.’

This ‘a capella’ group (unaccompanied voices) just couldn’t get a better recommendation for their performances at the Actors Studio, Bangsar (21st –23rd September ).
They will sing among others Saidah Rastam’s “Lapangan Ya Ya Ya” which they commissioned from her, and which was hailed by the Sydney Morning Herald as a “minor masterpiece”.

Saidah rastam - bio-data:
Saidah Rastam was trained as a lawyer as well as a musician. She now works exclusively as a composer in search of a contemporary Malaysian style incorporating Malay elements as well as Western influences.Her earlier work is mostly connected with theatre productions and commercial work In more recent work new possibilities are explored: the music for 'The Storyteller" (1996) combines gamelan and angklung with synthesizers and tape, and 'Scintillations' (1997) was written for a series of multimedia performances involving jazz and Indian classical musicians. Further experiments in contemporary sounds are heard in 'Rhythm in Bronze' (1997), 'Hang Li Po' (1998), 'The Merchant of Venice' (1999) and 'Pulau Antara' (2001), a theatre work commissioned by the Japan Foundation and staged in Tokyo and KL this year.
Saidah's work has been performed in contemporary music concerts in Europe, Canada, the United States and Australia. In 1999 Saidah was commissioned to compose music for the launch of the Kuala Lumpur Twin Towers, for which she was also musical director. In the year 2000 she completed the soundtrack for Amir Muhammad's "Lips to Lips", Malaysia's first digital movie.Her music has been heard in commercials and documentaries, most recently in 'Ilham', a series of TV documentaries on Malaysian fine arts to be aired later this year.
Projects for 2002 include music for the Commonwealth Games' cultural festival in Manchester, a theatre collaboration with Huzir Sulaiman, and music for the Actors' Studio's production of Usman Awang's 'Uda dan Dara' , which is being reworked as an opera.