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Music of Cambodia
Javanese and Balinese gamelan, Thai piphat, Khmer pinpeat, Vietnamese ca trù and đàn bầu, Burmese saung harp, Filipino kulintang and Malay dikir barat.
Sung and searched in Khmer. The YouTube button above can run your search in that language.
A brief history
Original Music Movement
The Cambodian Original Music Movement refers to a group of young Khmer musicians in Cambodia who write, record and perform original compositions. It began largely as a result of the creation of a venue in Phnom Penh called Show Box, a cross-cultural community hub created exclusively to promote original Khmer alternative art and music, and an amalgamation of various unique contemporary artists and musicians who were encouraged by music and art platforms like Cambodia's first alternative label Yab Moung Records. Yab Moung Records and Show Box actively encouraged the production of original music and was the artistic home of many original alternative musicians. Show Box only hosted original performances from both Khmer and international musicians and acted as a community hub for innovative ideas. This movement is described by some as their response to a copycat music culture, where many modern Khmer-language songs copy the melodies and lyrical themes from nearly identical Chinese, Thai, Korean, American and Vietnam works.
Popular music
Cambodian rock and pop
Starting in the late 1950s, Head of State Norodom Sihanouk, a musician himself, encouraged the development of popular music in Cambodia. Initially, pop records from France and Latin America were imported into the country and became popular, inspiring a flourishing music scene based in Phnom Penh and led by singers like Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran or Sinn Sisamouth, with hits such as "Violon Sneha". By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the scene was further influenced by Western rock and roll and soul music via U.S. armed forces radio that had been broadcast into nearby South Vietnam. This resulted in a unique sound in which Western pop and rock were combined with Khmer vocal techniques. Many of the most important singers of this era perished during the Khmer Rouge genocide. Western interest in the popular Cambodian music of the 1960s-70s was sparked by the bootleg album Cambodian Rocks in 1996, which in turn inspired the 2015 documentary film Don't Think I've Forgotten. In early 2020, playwright Lauren Yee's "Cambodian Rock Band premiered at the Signature Theatre in NYC.
Read the full article: Music of Cambodia Text under CC BY-SA 4.0
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