Information
THE KAMPOT TRADITIONAL MUSIC SCHOOL
For Orphaned and Disabled Children
(*Khmer Cultural Development Institute)
Our History
The Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children (KCDI-Khmer Cultural Development Institute) was founded in 1993 and built in 1994 and is a ratified Cambodian charitable, non-governmental organization, (charity number 1473) for the prese
rvation and development of Traditional Cambodian Fine Arts and the care of vulnerable and disadvantaged children. It was founded by a British violinist who graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Our Mission and Vision
Vision: A Society that respects, values and supports traditional Khmer arts and culture and provides opportunities for vulnerable children
Mission: The mission of KCDI is to protect, preserve and develop Cambodian traditional arts and culture for future generations, through education, training, awareness- raising and to care and heal vulnerable children. Values: Empowerment, Collaboration, Learning, Solidarity, Integrity and Responsibility. What we do
Today our school provides residential care for up to 25 very vulnerable children who have lost their parents and have no immediate family to assist them. We work in coordination with the Ministry and Kampot department of Social Affairs, as well as local village-authorities, to provide proper care for these children. The children at our school receive, accommodation, counselling, food, clothing, medical care, scholastic education from primary school level to university, tuition in the traditional Cambodian performing arts, (Pin Peat, Mahori music, classical Cambodian ballet, folk dance and ancient Yike theatre) and vocational training on our transition program, to prepare them for life as young, independent adults. Many of these children grow up to go on to university, teaching college, become professional artists and set up their own businesses. Our school also provides free tuition of traditional Cambodian performing arts to 400 disadvantaged primary school children from the local community of Kampot. In coordination with the local government departments of Culture and Education, KCDI (Kampot Traditional Music School) pursues a cultural preservation program promoted by the Ministry of Culture. After the Cambodian genocide, so many artists were killed, that there is now great concern over the loss of Cambodia’s cultural heritage. Those students attending our school are trained over a period of years, also as a form of vocational training. They participate in annual examinations alongside our residential children and are fully qualified on leaving our school. Some go on to the Royal University of Fine Arts to form professional careers. Additionally our Mahori music teacher gives free workshops and courses to blind students. Teaching staff are Cambodian and come from the National Theatre and the Royal University of Fine Arts. Last year, the Ministry of Culture cited our school as a role model for the rest of Cambodia. In 1995 the Kampot Traditional Music School (KCDI) was awarded the UNESCO World Decade for Cultural Development. Where we are
The Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children is situated in Kampot Provincial Town, 137 km Southwest of Phnom Penh. Kampot is famous for its beautiful Bokor mountain, waterfalls, river and the sea. However until 1997, the Khmer Rouge had one of their strongholds in Phnom Vor in Kampot and the population was severely afflicted by the civil war. Although a beautiful Province, the remoter areas of Kampot, are still without clean drinking water and electricity, Tuberculosis, Malaria and AIDS are endemic. One of the greatest social problems, is the abandonment of children by parents who “disappear” to Thailand to find work, but who never return. Many adults suffer very serious traumas as a result of the genocide and the war, this greatly affects children and the social fabric of Cambodia. What our School looks like and fundraising activities
Our school consists of 4 buildings including a performance hall and is set in large gardens, providing an atmosphere of peace and security for those who live there. We have two fish ponds and vegetable and fruit gardens. The construction of our buildings were sponsored by the Government of Japan, the British Embassy and the Canada Fund. We perform in official ceremonies and give monthly concerts as part of student’s artistic curriculum, in order to learn how to perform in front of a public. From these concerts we receive donations, we also sell CDs of the music from our school to raise funds, make ornaments and jewellery for sale. We have our own website and two fundraising projects posted on Global Giving. What happens to your donation
All staff are Cambodian nationals, our Board of Directors are voluntary. All donations go directly to the upkeep of our school. There are no expatriate overheads or administrative costs. Your contribution goes directly to providing our children with food, clothing, medical care, scholastic materials, instruments and tuition. The Traditional Culture of Cambodia. Why is it so special? Cambodia has a cultural tradition that has been kept in tact for over a thousand years. Once reigning over much of Southeast Asia, the *Khmer empire, with its Indian Hindu and laterBuddhist influences, had it’s capital at Angkor Wat in Siem Reap. A series of huge temples and palaces covered with exquisite carvings depicting daily life, battles, musicians and dancers. The same musical instruments can still be seen in traditional Pin Peat and Mahori music ensembles. The Apsara dancer, representing celestial beings can still be found in Cambodian dance today. Auguste Rodin in the early 19th century said on seeing the Royal Cambodian Ballet “The Cambodians have shown us all that integrity can contain” and “The Cambodians have found postures than no one else has dreamed of.”
Cambodia is predominately Buddhist with a minority of Muslim Chham from the days of the Kingdom of Champa. Buddhists and Muslims live in harmony and peace and Kampot Province has many Muslim communities. Not only are Cambodian musical instruments beautiful to look at, they are an integral part of Cambodian life. Pin Peat (sacred) music is performed on holy Buddhist days, at funerals, religious ceremonies and for classical ballet which is considered sacred. Before the Khmer Rouge each Buddhist Pagoda had its own Pin Peat orchestra. Mahori (secular) music is performed to describe life, nature and history, Plein Ka (deriving from the Mahori) is played at weddings and the musicians lead an active part in the ceremony. The woman singer represents the bride and the man likewise, the groom. Without their music, a wedding is considered incomplete and not valid. Traditional music accompanies Cambodians from their birth to their death. Yet traditionally Cambodian music was not written down and the knowledge was passed down from Master to pupil. Music teachers are considered of great importance and each year they and their ancestors, as well as dance and theatre teachers are paid homage by their pupils in a ceremony that binds the pupils to their teacher. So many great music Masters were killed that in the early 1990’s there was a great risk of traditional music dying out all together. At the Kampot Traditional Music School our teachers are highly qualified and on them is the responsibility of passing on this ancient tradition. Our current Pin Peat teacher himself was a pupil at our school from 1994 to 2002 and he was appointed successor of our former Pin Peat master Meas Saem on his retirement, this being a great honour. The first of our Pin Peat Masters was the late Huot Toch, one of the greatest Pin Peat masters left alive after the Khmer Rouge regime. It is from him that a great tradition of Pin Peat was established at the Kampot Traditional Music School. Our Pin Peat teacher is now notating and documenting this music, a task inherited by his former teacher Meas Saem, one of the only musicians of his generation to write down Pin Peat music. In this way we are trying to save Cambodian music from disappearing. The Ministry of Culture has also for some years initiated a project to document music. Traditional Cambodian ballet is considered sacred, because the dancer represents celestial beings and the contrasting elements of good and bad. Female dancers dance both female and male roles and only men dance the role of the Monkey King Hanuman in the Reamker (derived from the Indian Hindu Ramayana). The Yike, is thought to be of Khmer and Malay influence and is probably related to the Chham. It is a very rare art form which combines both song and dance, but the dance is rather different from classical Cambodian ballet, as is also the use of the voice and musical harmonies and the Yike drums. The Kampot Traditional Music School is extraordinarily fortunate to have two Yike teachers (husband and wife) who teach the male and female roles of the Yike. They are considered to be Cambodia’s greatest experts on this art form and Kampot is famous for its Yike troupe. History of Cambodia
In the days of French Indochine, Cambodia was considered a sort of paradise, with its beautiful, gentle people, exquisite culture and French-Khmer architecture. Cambodia’s traditional cultural heritage, was very badly damaged during the war and the Khmer Rouge genocide. In 1970, Prince Sihanouk leader of Cambodia, choosing neutrality for his country during the Vietnam - American war, was deposed in a coup led by the U.S.-backed General Lon Nol. Believing Cambodia to be infiltrated by Vietcong, the U.S.A. embarked on one of the most heavy bombardments of history, raining on Laos and Cambodia more tons of bombs than during the entire 2nd world war. Thousands of civilians died and one million Cambodians became refugees and fled to the capital Phnom Penh. Lon Nol proved to be instable and corrupt, he pursued a violent policy against ethnic civilian Vietnamese and many of his military officers illicitly sold arms to the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who were gradually gaining force in the jungles of Northern and Western Cambodia. Sliding into civil war between government and Khmer Rouge forces, decimated by U.S. air strikes, Cambodia, once considered the jewel and rice-bowl of Southeast Asia, slid into chaos and disaster. By 1975, hospitals in Phnom Penh were overflowing with the wounded, the city was swollen with refugees, people were starving as road, river and air routes were cut off, as the Khmer Rouge surrounded the capital city, preparing for the final attack. On April 17th 1975, Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. There began 3 years of terror and darkness, known as “Year Zero”. The Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, emptied the capital city of all it’s inhabitants, including the sick and the dying, forcing the entire population of Cambodia to form vast concentration camps in the countryside. The infrastructure of Cambodia was destroyed, roads, bridges, banks, schools, pagodas and churches and all educated people were targeted. The Khmer Rouge rounded up doctors, engineers, architects, economists, civil servants, former soldiers, artists and teachers, taking them to ready-dug pits, “the Killing fields” and assassinating them. Even people who wore glasses or had remote connections to intellectuals were murdered. Not only were educated people killed, but also their families and each family member, including children were led off one by one never to return. Those few intellectuals who survived did so, because they had the fortune not to be recognized. The Khmer Rouge established torture and death camps, the most famous of which “Toul Slang” in Phnom Penh, to extract “confessions” of “Capitalism” or trumped up charges of “Spying”. Pursuing an agrarian society without respect for farming techniques, the rice crop failed and the entire population was reduced to starvation. There were no hospitals and no medicines. Khmer Rouge soldiers injected the sick with one dirty syringe filled with coconut juice and therefore people died of blood poisoning. The Khmer Rouge were led by the shadowy Pol Pot, (Saloth Sar) and a clique
of former Cambodian intellectuals who had studied in Paris and developed extreme Marxist ideologies. Pol Pot supported by Chairman Mao, studied the Chinese revolution and brought these ideas to bear in Cambodia, but in a much more extreme manner, that even Chairman Mao himself reprimanded Pol Pot for having “exaggerated”. In 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia putting an end to Khmer Rouge rule. Of a population of 7 million, it is estimated that up to 3 million died, over one third of the population. It is thought up to 90% of Cambodian artists were killed. Cambodia’s traditional music and dance, despite being pronounced “World Intangible Heritage” by UNESCO, risks disappearing. Thank you,
Catherine Louise Geach
(Founder)
(*N.B. The word “Khmer” means Cambodian)
" Help our school by donating on the Global Giving Website "
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/residential-care-for-25-vulnerable-children-cambodia/
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/free-arts-training-for-400-children-cambodia/
