“Don’t claim to be a Universitas Indonesia students, if you don’t know Mas Dibyo or Pak Dibyo” are words that are often said about Dr. Drs. A. G. Sudibyo, M.Si. or “Mas Dibyo”. For the past 40 years, he has always attended the Universitas Indonesia (UI) graduation ceremony, as well as the graduation ceremony this morning (11/09) at Balairung UI. His role is as the choir director. Dibyo is also one of the founders of the UI Paragita Choir Student Activity Unit.
Dr. Drs. A. G. Sudibyo, M.Si. is a lecturer at the Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas IndonesiaFSPS UI), as well as the Head of the Subdirectorate of Student Interest and Talent Development at Student Affairs Directorate, UI.
He is a “living legend” for UI students. He has worked at UI as a lecturer since 1993. Dibyo is also the founder of Vocal Group UI (Vocademia).
She took up singing as a student and joined the choir on campus. Dibyo has been a conductor since he was in the third semester of college, during the leadership of UI Rector Nugroho Notosusanto.
The story begins with a UI Choir performance held in Magelang City, where she went to school. She was interested and motivated to join the UI Choir. “From then on, I liked the UI Choir. The dedication as choir director is just a hobby, my main duty at UI is as a lecturer,” he said when interviewed.
Thanks to his love for singing, Dibyo was given the opportunity by the Rector of UI to lead the Choir for New Students since 1983. When asked what motivates Dibyo, he said, in a firm voice, “One of the motivations for being a conductor is to be able to motivate others. With thousands of new UI students who have a sense of pride to be part of UI. The pride that students have is channeled through singing and is a form of expression. With that pride, we touch their hearts by singing. In addition, the aspects that must be owned when singing, namely responsibility, discipline, and can establish bonds between each other.”
Every journey has its own challenges, and being a choir director and lecturer at UI is no exception. “If I fall ill, it will certainly hamper the activities carried out,” Dibyo said.
Not only did he face challenges, he had an interesting experience being a choir director at UI. “When some UI Alumni who are old and have families, still recognize me,” he said, followed by a happy laugh.
Dibyo’s busy schedule means that he has to manage his agenda while being a lecturer, choir director, art UKM advisor, as well as the Head of Sub-Directorate of UI Student Interest and Talent Development. “By organizing the agenda of teaching lecturers at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. And the rest just flows, because choir conducting is done only a few times a year. During the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was only this year that UI again held choir training activities for new students,” he said.
Thanks to his dedication, the New Student Choir has won an award from the Indonesian Record Museum (MURI) for the record category for initiating and organizing a choir with the most participants, namely 3,700 students. The MURI award was given to the Rector of UI in 2005. In addition, in 2007 Dibyo’s experience as a conductor was immortalized in the film “The Conductors” as a documentary, by director Andi Bachtiar Yusuf, Addie MS and Yuli Somphiel as conductors of supporters of the Arema Malang football club.
This year, at the Introduction to Campus Life for New Students event, UI again won the MURI record in the categories of “Most Batik Dyeing by New Students” and “Most New Student Choir”. The MURI charter was directly given by MURI Founder Prof. Dr. (HC). Jaya Suprana to UI Rector Prof. Ari Kuncoro, SE, MA, Ph.D., and given to Dibyo as the conductor of the largest new student choir with 9,000 people on Thursday (25/8).
