Scripps College in Claremont has extended a special welcome to the Los Angeles and Long Beach-based Cambodian communities to attend a premiere performance of music by iconic Cambodian composer Chinary Ung this Saturday.<\/p>\n
Ung and acclaimed filmmaker Rithy Panh are visiting the liberal arts college for a weeklong residency to culminate in a performance of new music and the screening of Panh\u2019s 2014 documentary to \u201ccelebrate the role of the arts in healing a nation,\u201d the college announced this week.<\/p>\n
In addition to the premiere, several films will be screened exploring the impacts of the Khmer Rouge regime\u2019s decimation of Cambodian culture between 1975 and 1979, causing the deaths of some 1.8 million people. Emerging from a climate of fear and oppression, Cambodian artists are attempting to revive the country\u2019s artistic traditions.<\/p>\n
The Missing Pictures and Sounds of Memory: A Celebration of Cambodian Film and Contemporary Classical Music will take place from 7:30PM to 11:00PM at Garrison Theater on campus.<\/p>\n
Ung\u2019s new work, Therigatha Inside Aura<\/em>, was commissioned by Associate Professor of Music Anne Harley, and draws from the ancient Buddhist collection of women\u2019s scriptures, the Therigatha, the earliest collection of women\u2019s writings in the world, according to the announcement. The poems reaffirm the equality of the sexes in early Buddhist spiritual practice. As one of the leading American composers of classical music today, Ung has set the texts in Khmer, Pali and English.<\/p>\n Performing Therigatha<\/i> will be Stacey Fraser and Harley sopranos\/percussion, Susan Ung, viola\/voice, Brian Walsh, clarinets\/voice, and Nick Terry, percussion\/voice, according to the release.<\/p>\n Following the premiere, a conversation on the arts in Cambodian society with Ung and Panh, the latter of whom produced Angelina Jolie\u2019s recent film on the Cambodian genocide, \u201cFirst They Killed My Father\u201d, will be moderated by Harley and Professor of French Nathalie Rachlin.<\/p>\n