from the Cambodia Daily, May 25, 2000
Free Concerts Honor Classic Music of Roluos
by Jody McPhillips
Three groups
of students from the Roluos area southeast of Siem Reap win
perform the area's distinctive Khmer music in three free
concerts starting tonight.
AH concerts
will start at 6 pm at the Reyum Gallery, No 47 St 178.
Commentary tonight will be in English; Friday and Saturday,
most likely in Khmer.
"We will vary
the program, depending on what people want to hear," said
musicologist Um Mongkol, who has been working since 1994 to
help revive the traditions of Khmer classical music. The 27
students, ranging in age from 14 to 20, are part of his
recent effort to preserve variations in traditional music
from region to region. For example, he said, musicians from
Siem Reap have a softer style than those trained in Phnom
Penh, using two oboes in the classic pin peat orchestra
rather than one.
Like other Khmer traditional musicians, Um Mongkol is intent
on restoring what was nearly lost in Cambodia.
Um Mongkol,
who earns his living as a structural engineer, has set up
music schools at pagodas in the Roluos area, harking back to
the days when each temple had its own orchesjtra.
Tin trying to
test whether the Cambodian way of teaching music will work,"
he said. "So far, it does, perfectly well"
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