A debut solo performance on the Kong Vong ThomLast night's Khmix It! traditional Cambodian music session at Meta House saw the solo debut of a petite sixteen year old Cambodian Livings Arts student who played a series of time-honoured tunes on the Kong Vong Thom, or large circle of gongs, usually heard at weddings or funerals and as part of a much-larger pinpeat orchestra. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her name! She was naturally very nervous and keen to get home but did tell me that she has been playing the gongs for five years, knows about 100 tunes from her master teacher Tep Mari and lives in the Bassac community, where the majority of artists and performers reside. Currently in 8th grade at High School, she practices for two and a half hours every day and the Kong Vong Thom is one of five instruments that she can play to a good standard. She used a soft mallet to play the tuned instrument which had sixteen cymbal-like metal gongs arranged in a circle around her and suspended on a rattan frame. The gongs were in order of size with the smallest, highest-pitched on her right hand-side, and the largest, lowest-pitched on the left with the others in order between. The gongs are made of a copper and bronze and contain a mixture of lead and beeswax inside. I knew practically nothing about these traditional instruments, so these regular Meta House Wednesday night sessions have been a great way to find out more about Khmer music and whilst the Kong Vong Thom isn't my favourite, it's one of the many that go to make up the larger pinpeat ensemble that you can see at traditional performances, like the one I attended on Monday, accompanied by the Royal Ballet dancers.
Note: After my unforgiveable sin of not getting this young lady's name, I rang a couple of people and can reveal the dedicated gong debutant as Tum Chandy. Long may she gong.
1 comment:
Andy, thank you very much for loving my country. Cambodian are lovely and honest, we never take thing for granted. As you can see there are a lot issues we faced in this era. Since, the fall of south vietnam, Cambodia was in the hand of those authoritorian rulers, such as, pol pot, Ieng Sary, Kheiv Sophan, et. Because of those guys, cambodia became the least educator and the poorest country.
in the 11th& 12th century, Khmer were the emperorlist in the southeast asia region. we are the poineers, merchants, craftmans, and and architectures. we built the most magnificent temples during the medieval time. we built not just one but plenty all over the regions. sadly, we have this neighbor people,Siams,stole the land since in the 15th century until now. I beleive my ancestor never built temples on the border of somebody land. due to this hungry, blood thirsty thai, Khmer's land disappeared century after century. you can see now, Thai stole cambodian temples. We are the nation lived in the rule of law. cambodia has her sovereignty.
I ask you on behalve of Khmer children, help me to bring these issues to UN charter so the law order be must be restored. We,the Cambodian, can not affort to see the land, the temples in the hand of this thai nation. Please become the activist so cambodian cambrade will fellow you as the leader to contest this land grabbing in the international body council.
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