UC
San Diego composer Chinary Ung is collaborating with the New York New
Music Ensemble, Cambodia’s Royal University of Fine Arts, the U.S.
Embassy in Phnom Penh and Cambodia Living Arts in offering the first
Nimitta Composers Institute in Cambodia.
Underwritten
by a grant from the Asian Cultural Council, Ung and his wife, violist
Susan Ung, and the New York New Music Ensemble, will travel to Phnom
Penh in late June for a series of concerts, workshops and lectures
focusing on training and supporting young Cambodian composers.
Ung,
who earned his doctorate at Columbia University (and was born in
Cambodia and lost family members in the “killing fields” genocide), has
long been a strong supporter of Cambodian composers and an ardent
advocate of preserving Cambodian culture.
He
has received several cultural preservation awards from
Cambodian-American communities and is an adviser of the Killing Fields
Memorial and Cambodian-American Heritage Museum in Chicago.
The
New York New Music Ensemble recently performed his music at New York’s
Le Poisson Rouge in a “Season of Cambodia” festival concert celebrating
Ung’s 70th birthday,
In a
note to potential supporters of the composers project, Ung said he
imagined a “movable school of composition that can form partnerships
with existing institutions, centers, or community villages throughout
Cambodia.”
In its inaugural
incarnation, the festival will offer several young Cambodian composers
the opportunity for the New York New Music Ensemble to perform their
work and offer suggestions. It will also provide several “small monetary
awards” for the most promising composers.
For more information on the project, visit the New York New Music Ensemble’s website:
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