bengawan4dBengawan Solo’s Conception. Bengawan Solo was written and first performed by Gesang Martohartono in 1940, just before the Japanese invasion that lasted 3 years from 1942Bengawan Solo was founded in 1975 by Anastasia Tjendri-Liew, an Indonesian-Chinese who emrated from Palembang, Indonesia to Singapore. [2] Tjendri-Liew had initially started an