Help Young Cambodian Artists Start Their Career

With your support, we are happy to share with you the following achievements from two of our scholarship students (names have been changed to protect their identity). 

Scholarship student Boramy studies Smot.  Smot is a chanted form of poetry that tells stories about the life of the Buddha or Khmer stories that teach religious principles.  Smot can be challenging to learn because the melodies and vocal style are quite different from modern songs.  The words used in Smot are written in Pali, not Khmer, and include obscure vocabulary that can be difficult to memorize at first.  Through his scholarship, Boramy has learned five new Smot songs since October and has written a new song using Smot melody.  This new song was written with the intention to educate young people about the bad effects of drug use and was performed during the scholarship students 4^th Quarterly Meeting. 

CLA regularly holds demonstrations of the various arts forms it works with in communities across the country, with the aim of exposing and encourage a new generation to learn, preserve and develop the arts in Cambodia.  In addition to preforming his unique song at the scholarship students 4^th Quarterly Meeting, Boramy also performed his self-written song at a Smot demonstration in his village at Chrey Ho Pnov High School.

Scholarship student Sarin studies Roneat.  Roneat is a xylophone and an important part of the Pin Peat ensemble.  Pin Peat originated in Cambodia’s royal courts and temples at least a thousand years ago.  The music was played by orchestras or music ensembles to accompany court dances, masked plays, shadow plays, and religious ceremonies.  Through his scholarship Sarin is able to study music notation, musical beat and time signatures used in modern music.  Since October Sarin has learned six new songs and was able to purchase his own personal Roneat.

As part of our Creative Industries program, CLA facilitates paid performances for its troupes of professional and emerging artists.  Sarin, currently performs every Wednesday at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh and is a member of the front of house team for Plae Pakaa.  Plae Pakaa (translated as “fruitful”) is an original production featured exclusively at the National Museum of Phnom Penh.  This season, CLA offers three rotating performance six nights a week, Children of Bassac, Mak Therng, and Passage of Life.

Many of our other students have realized achievements over the past few months and with twenty-five scholarship students in total, this year, we plan to continue sharing these achievements with you in future reports.

In addition to individual achievements, all 25 students were invited together on December 20, 2013 for a scholarship community meeting.  The purpose of this meeting was to get all the students together to share experiences while building up a social network.  The meeting also served to prepare students for the next quarter while providing additional information and/or to answer any questions about the scholarship program students may have.

Links:

• Scholarship Awards Keeping Classical & Folk Arts Alive