Instrumental
Note the labels on this roneat - they're Western music notes. Him Sophy, working with Cambodian Living Arts, has created some hybrid instruments for their Cambodian-American Opera project. Below is a slightly revised gong vong thom.
Cambodian music has no notation system, and is taught orally. There has some academic writing (notably Him Sophy, Sam-Ang Sam) and last year Reyum published Keo Narom's book on the topic. Retired professor Mao Phoeung is also compiling an extensive Encyclopedia of Khmer music.
Generally if you say 'opera' I'll stifle a yawn. (If you say 'Andrew Lloyd Webber' I'm out the door.) But I'm impressed with what the team is assembling, given the technical challenges of overseas collaboration. How do you email information halfway around your world to musical partners? MP3s are pretty bulky. They've set up a system to email simple musical notation files (customized for these instruments) which makes it much easier.
I'm looking forward to checking out the final product, which will premiere this year.
Sounds like these guys are having fun!
(Photos (c) Cambodian Living Arts, cheers!)
Tags: cambodia,music,opera
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