Vos Chandara, the dean at RUFA’s Faculty of Music. Charlotte Pert |
Crossing borders: the sound of American folk set to meet Cambodian traditional song
This weekend, American country group The Amigos will perform
with musicians from the Royal University of Fine Arts. Emily Wight
reports.
What do American country music and traditional Cambodian songs have
in common? Not much. Funny, then, that Kan Chanthou, a teacher and
singer of the Kingdom’s traditional folk, has recently become a keen
student of accordions and bluegrass country music.
“Their songs were happy and rhythmic whereas with ours, the audience
just gives themselves to the song, feeling their way along,” said
Chanthou, speaking in the peaceful grounds of RUFA’S Faculty of Music
earlier this week.
The Amigos, who arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, will perform with
RUFA’s musicians on Friday evening in the circus tent opposite the
National Assembly, and again in Kampong Speu on Saturday evening, in an
event organised as part of the American Music Abroad programme initiated
by the US State Department.
Vos Chandara, the dean at the Faculty of Music at RUFA, has chosen
five musicians from the university, including Chanthou, to take part in
the collaboration. They have been practicing songs from The Amigos, he
said – and he sent The Amigos Cambodian songs to practice in the States
before they arrived in Phnom Penh. During their performances, the two
groups will play both genres together and separately.
Chandara said: “I think it’s very important for our students and
teachers to have the chance to exchange cultures, ideas and skills.”
He added: “The people in this world don’t live alone. Cambodia is not
an isolated country – we have friends; we have connections in other
countries. And culture is not just for our country – it’s for everyone.”
Keo Sophy, a composition teacher at the faculty, is well versed in
sharing the music of his homeland with other countries. Last year, he
went to South Korea for six months to teach music at the National
Theatre of Korea in Seoul. While he was there he also learned to play
the gayageum, a traditional Korean harp-like instrument.
He said that he hopes the collaboration with Amigos will offer a
similar experience. “I don’t want to live alone in this country. I want
it to be multicultural, not just one culture. If students here have more
abilities, they might be able to join international people in other
countries,” he said.
The band’s accordionist, Sam Rieder, said they’re excited to be
working with RUFA’s musicians, adding that he expects to find more
similarities than differences in their approach. He continued: “It’s
easy for people to forget that the history of music really is one of
travelling, of music crossing borders. The collaborations we do are a
way of expressing the way that the history of music is very
interconnected and diverse.”
After performing in Cambodia, the AMA will send The Amigos to China,
Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos to collaborate with musicians there.
In Phnom Penh, the US embassy is co-managing the scheme alongside
Amrita Performing Arts. The embassy’s public affairs officer Sean
McIntosh said that the AMA program is to build on the legacy of the
“jazz ambassadors” of the 1950s who, counting Duke Ellington and Louis
Armstrong among them, travelled the world to connect people through
music.
McIntosh said: “We hope these exchanges by Amigos will help promote a
positive image of the United States through arts and music, and give
Cambodian audiences the chance to directly interact with American
artists.”
He added: “The United States is honoured to stand with the Cambodian
people as they work to preserve the heritage of their past and nurture
new talent and art forms in the present in order to create a better
future for generations of Cambodians to come.”
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