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With a mission to "help students lay the foundation for a life-long pursuit of music", a new school in Phnom Penh is creating opportunities for aspiring musicians. Mail Lynn Miller Nguyen visits the Music Arts School, where harmony is both the means and the end. Photography by Dylan Walker.

The walls of the Music Arts School are painted in a rainbow of vibrant shades. A spacious balcony holds comfortable couches for students to hang out between lessons. The strains of piano echo throughout the building’s two floors, punctuated by the cheerful sounds of students coming and going.

This is no stodgy arts academy. Giving a tour of the Music Arts School, which opened in June of this year, senior adviser TJ Brown points out the courtyard area. The outdoor space is where the school’s public group jam sessions take place, bringing together Cambodian and foreign students, staff and anyone with a wish to join in on the music making.

“We’ve also had dance practices here,” Brown says. “A dance troupe recently came through. Basically, we’re trying to create this community arts space.”

Founded by a Swiss entrepreneur, with a team of music-loving Cambodian and foreign administrators and teachers, the Music and Arts School has an accent on community at its heart—as demonstrated in the warm atmosphere and relatively affordable tuition fees.

Opening Doors

“It’s very different to other music schools,” says Andy Hawkins, music director, guitarist and composer who has done much to promote music training in Cambodia. “I think the primary objective is that this school is trying to provide music education to the less fortunate, the less well-off.”

Six students are currently supported by scholarships to take lessons. The number of scholarships offered is contingent on funding, but organisers aim to provide support to around 20 to 30 percent of the school’s total students, according to Brown.

The school offers instruction in piano, violin, guitar and vocals, as well as Cambodian instruments such as the Khem, Skor, Takkeo and Tro. There are currently six Cambodian teachers, predominantly trained at the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA).

The school’s director Keth Song Va is one of the teachers. He received a Bachelor of Violin at RUFA, and also plays guitar and piano. He is currently part of a Khmer folk band that aims to combine elements of Western and Cambodian music for an original approach.

“I wanted to open a music school, but I didn’t have enough money to do so,” says Keth.

“Here we can provide western music, we can provide Khmer instruments, we can provide lessons to the poorer students with scholarships—that is my dream.”

Nurturing Passion

Pupils at the Music Arts School range from young children to adults. Nita, 16, is learning to play guitar and piano. She considered other music schools, but chose this one for its lower priced lessons. She enjoys learning in an environment she describes as “beautiful” and “colourful.”

“I love music, and since I was young, I saw my father play guitar and piano, so I wanted to learn like him,” says Nita.

Although her parents were reluctant about letting her play guitar—“In Cambodia, parents are strict on girls,” she says. “Guitar is for boys. Boys have much more freedom to go out there and study music.”—Nita pushed to take classes in the two instruments.

Nita plans to continue her lessons even when she begins university this month. She’s concerned that her parents won’t continue to pay for her classes, seeing music as a distraction from her studies, but she declares that she would find a way to pay for them herself.

Music is a release for Nita, who says “If people have some problems in their lives, music is something that can cheer them up.”

A Cambodian Music Revival

In one of the school’s practice rooms, photographs of Cambodian musicians form a sort of memorial to Cambodia’s musical history. Hawkins notes that several students in the scholarship class he teaches choose to play old songs by Sinn Sisamouth, considered the King of Khmer Music during the 1950s to 1960s.

“Before the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia was really well known for its music,” says Hawkins. “I think Cambodians are starting to realise that music is innately inside them and they’re able to discover it again. There’s a whole renaissance of music in Cambodia.”

In September, Prime Minister Hun Sen encouraged young musicians to create original music based in Khmer tradition, instead of mimicking foreign styles. Yet as music is not featured in public school curricula, it is a challenge for students to access instruction.

“A big thing that I want to get moving is the outreach programme so that we actually take our teaching into local communities,” says Hawkins. “On the back of those visits we can identify who might be gifted or talented and we can offer them scholarships to come here.”

Hawkins hopes to raise the profile of music in Cambodia, so much so that perhaps the education system may one day incorporate its own music programmes.

Music Arts School, 9A Street 370, Tel: 023 997 290. For more information about the school, including lesson packages and prices, see: music-arts-school.org.