Grant will help save Cambodian musical heritage in Modesto

DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com - Mao Roth, 57, plays a skor, Chhip Chhoun, 65,on the khhem, Muy Kim, 77, plays the tror. Chhoun and The Bridge, have won $40,000 grant to present free performances at the center.

DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com - The Bridge Community Center. Chhip Chhoun and The Bridge, have won $40,000 grant to present free performances at the center.

DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com - Chhip Chhoun, 65, holding a khhem, Muy Kim, 77, with the tror and Mao Roth, 57, with a skor, the instruments they play. Chhoun and The Bridge, have won $40,000 grant to present free performances at the center.

DEBBIE NODA/dnoda@modbee.com - Mao Roth, 57, plays a skor, Chhip Chhoun, 65,on the khhem. Chhoun and The Bridge, have won $40,000 grant to present free performances at the center.

Cambodian musicians in Modesto are determined not to let their musical traditions fade away.

Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011
By Lisa Millegan Renner
lrenner@modbee.com
Modesto Bee (California, USA)

They applied for and won a $40,000 grant from the Creative Work Fund to teach their art to youth.

Chhip Chhoun, 65, and other skilled performers will give free biweekly concerts beginning in January at The Bridge Community Center, a nonprofit facility in west Modesto that provides services to the Cambodian community. Some of the money will go to purchase traditional instruments for young people.

Speaking with the aid of an interpreter, Chhoun said he was happy to have the funding to help preserve an important cultural practice.

This year alone, four skilled Cambodian musicians in town have died, said Mao Roth, the interpreter, who works at The Bridge.

"There are not too many left here in Modesto," he said.

Formed in 1989 by faculty from California State University, Stanislaus, Modesto Junior College and community volunteers, The Bridge serves an estimated 2,000 Cambodian immigrants and their family members. Many of the first immigrants came to Modesto and other U.S. cities more than 30 years ago after fleeing the fighting in Southeast Asia.

Chhoun, who was born in Cambodia, learned to play the khhem (a stringed instrument similar to an autoharp) from his grandfather 46 years ago. Other instruments that will be used at the concerts include the skor (drum), the takei (a long-stringed instrument) and the tror (known as the Cambodian violin). Chhoun knows how to make some of the instruments.

He doesn't read music and will teach young people by demonstrating the technique and then having them copy him, the same way he learned to play. Members of The Bridge's Youth Council will videotape the concerts and construction of the instruments for a documentary series that will be shown on Cambodian TV and kept for later viewing at The Bridge and CSU Stanislaus Institute for Cultural Resources.

Marge Leopold, another staff member at The Bridge, said the center used to have a Cambodian music program several years ago but had to cut it because of money constraints. The concerts are a good way to bring the Cambodian community together and get people to use the center, which is on an acre of land on Chicago Avenue, off Paradise Road.

The property features an old house with flower and vegetable gardens, a basketball court and a traditional Cambodian hut. The center offers parent education programs, health education, interpretation and immigration services, and English-as-a-second-language classes.

Frances Phillips, executive director of the San Francisco-based Creative Work Fund, said her group has wanted to fund projects in Modesto for a few years and is excited finally to give its first award to the city. The grant was given from the Creative Work Fund's traditional arts program. Other grant recipients this year include Filipino, Mexican and African dancers and musicians in the Bay Area.

A panel of experts confirmed that Chhoun is knowledgeable in traditional Cambodian music, she said.

"We felt there were a lot of artists like this one who are masters of their art form, often very poor and have incredible skills," she said. "There wasn't a desire to create something huge and flashy to go on a stage. This was kept in context to have people learn the musical form. It had a grass-roots quality that seemed authentic to this artistic tradition."

The Creative Work Fund is accepting letters of inquiry for the next cycle of grants. This time, it would like proposals for performing artists or media artists. For more information, go to www.creativeworkfund.org.

Bee staff writer Lisa Millegan Renner can be reached at lrenner@modbee.com or (209) 578-2313.