Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, choreographer and director

Sophiline Cheam Shapiro is a choreographer, dancer, vocalist and educator whose challenging work has infused the venerable Cambodian classical form with new ideas and energy. Her choreography includes Samritechak/ Othello (2000), The Glass Box (2002) and Seasons of Migration (2005), which she has set on Cambodia’s finest performing artists and toured to three continents. Notable venues include Cal Performances, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New York’s Joyce Theater and the Venice Biennale. Pamina Devi had its world premiere at Vienna’s New Crowned Hope Festival (2006) and tours the USA and Europe during the 2007-08 season. Among her essays is "Songs My Enemies Taught Me," published in Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors, compiled by Dith Pran, edited by Kim DePaul (1997, Yale University Press). Cheam Shapiro has received numerous honors, including Creative Capital, Durfee, Guggenheim and Irvine Dance Fellowships, as well as the 2006 Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture.

Cheam Shapiro was a member of the first generation to graduate from the Royal University of Fine Arts after the fall of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime and was a member of the faculty there from 1988 to 1991. She studied all three major roles for women (neang, nearong and yeak), which is rare. With RUFA’s ensemble, she toured India, the Soviet Union, the USA and Vietnam. She immigrated to Southern California in 1991. Shapiro studied dance ethnology at UCLA on undergraduate and graduate levels. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of Khmer Arts based in Long Beach, CA and Takhmao, Cambodia.

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Chinary Ung, composer

Born: Cambodia, 1942

Came to the U.S.: in 1964 to study clarinet and composition at the Manhattan School of Music; became a composition student of Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-Chung; earned a DMA in Composition with distinction from Columbia University in 1974.

Has taught at: Northern Illinois University, Connecticut College, University of Pennsylvania, Arizona State University; currently a Professor of Composition at University of California, San Diego

His music: has been commissioned by major orchestras around the world and has been recorded extensively. Bridge Records will soon release a recording of several of his instrumental works.

Grants and Awards: Guggenheim Foundation, Serge Koussevitsky Music Foundation, BMI, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund, Meet the Composer Foundation; in 1989 Chinary Ung became the first American winner of the international Grawemeyer Award for his orchestral piece Inner Voices.

Also plays: the Roneat Ek, the traditional solo xylophone for the Cambodian percussion-dominated orchestra, pin peat, which accompanies the court dance

Musical ideas: grow out of the synthesis of Western techniques and craft, together with the aesthetics and principals found in the many traditions and instrumental techniques of Asia. His works of the last ten years have required instrumentalists to perform extensive vocalizations, including singing different lines while also playing. He has created an entire body of work which requires all instrumentalists to venture into a demanding mind-set of musical multi-tasking.

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Lou Harrison, composer

Lou Harrison, an innovator of musical composition and performance, was in the vanguard of American composers. Transcending cultural boundaries, Harrison's highly acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the world. It's been said he is one of the first American composers to successfully create a workable marriage between Eastern and Western forms.

Read more about this legendary composer and hear samples of his work at: http://www.newalbion.com/NA_Artists/Harrison_L/Harrison_L.htm
or
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,99408,00.html

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Elissa Johnston, soprano

Has performed with: Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Colorado Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Contemporary Players and the Pasadena Symphony

World premiere performances: Aura by Chinary Ung with Grammy Award©-winning Southwest Chamber Music, and as Pat Nixon in the world premiere of John Adams’ concert suite from Nixon in China entitled The Nixon Tapes, with the composer conducting

Festival appearances: New York Philharmonic’s Copland Festival, Lincoln Center’s Stravinsky Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Aspen Music Festival

Opera roles: Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Snape Proms in England, the role of Female Chorus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at the Aldeburgh October Britten Festival, and Marzelline in concert performances of Beethoven’s Fidelio at both the Aspen Festival and with the Wheeling Symphony, the role of Brigitta in concert performances of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta with the L.A. Philharmonic, and LA Opera performances of Il Trovatore, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria

Raves: Hailed for “her voice pure and ethereal, her expression embracing and heartfelt” – Musical America

Last LAMC appearance: Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem in October 2008

On the big screen: recorded dozens of film soundtracks, including The Simpsons, Spiderman 2 & 3, I Am Legend

Recordings: featured soloist on Aura by Chinary Ung with Southwest Chamber Music, Serenada Schizophrana by Danny Elfman on Sony Classics, and The Song of Songs by Jorge Liderman

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Kathleen Roland, soprano

Has performed with: Los Angeles Philharmonic, Southwest Chamber Music, Long Beach Opera, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ensemble Milano, Pacific Serenades Chamber Music, Los Angeles Jewish Symphony

World premiere performances: Aura by Chinary Ung with Grammy Award©-winning Southwest Chamber Music, and Thomas Pasatieri’s song cycle A Rustling of Angels

Festival appearances: Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Britten-Pears Institute, Tanglewood Music Festival

Opera roles: Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus and Giulietta in Tales of Hoffmann with San Francisco Opera; with Los Angeles Opera her roles include Aida, Desdemona, Marguerite (La Damnation de Faust), the Dyer’s Wife, Ariadne, and Vanessa

Raves: “…magnificently sung with power and great strength of emotion…” – Los Angeles Times

Recordings: featured soloist on Aura by Chinary Ung with Southwest Chamber Music, Libby Larsen’s Licorice Stick on Oxford University Press

Accomplishments: DMA in vocal performance from University of Southern California; 2001 American-Scandinavian Foundation grant; 2007 Fulbright scholarship

Teaches: at Scripps College in Claremont as a Visiting Assistant Professor

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Khmer Arts Ensemble

Dancers Chao Socheata, Kong Bonich, Mot Pharan, Noun Kaza, Pum Molyta, Sao Phirom and Mot Sovanndy studied classical dance at Phnom Penh's National School of Fine Arts of the Royal University of Fine Arts, Cambodia's official performing arts conservatory. As principals with the Khmer Arts Ensemble, they have performed throughout Cambodia, as well as across Europe and North America. The Khmer Arts Ensemble is an independent dance company that develops and presents the original choreography of Artistic Director Sophiline Cheam Shapiro as well as rarely-performed works from the classical canon on major stages throughout the world. It is based in Takhmao, Cambodia, and is a program of Long Beach's Khmer Arts.

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