Ung Khse Buon

Chinary Ung was born at Takeo, Cambodia on 24 November 1942.  Khse Buon (roughly translated as “Four Strings”) was originally written for solo cello and was commissioned in 1980 by Marc Johnson, formerly of the Vermeer Quartet.  The version for viola was transcribed by the composer’s wife, Susan Lee Pounders Ung.  Susan Ung wrote the following in an article about her husband:

Chinary Ung came to the United States in 1964 to study at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where he received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in clarinet and conducting. He later turned his studies toward composition, became a student of Chou Wen-chung, and received a doctoral degree with distinction from Columbia University in 1974. It was 1977 when he got his first job as a composer at Northern Illinois University. He then later taught at Connecticut College, The University of Pennsylvania and Arizona State University. Dr. Ung has been Professor of Composition at The University of California at San Diego since 1995.  Between 1974-1979, many Cambodians were detained in work camps or were executed at the hands of the brutal regime of Pol Pot, with no communication to the outside world. Ung knew nothing about the well-being or whereabouts of his family, stopped composing and searched for new ways to approach his direction as an artist. In 1980, word began coming from the refugee camps. Many of his relatives had been executed or subjected to forced starvation and he gradually discovered that he had lost half of his family. The holocaust in Cambodia had nearly destroyed the rich culture of the Khmer people as many artists and intellectuals had been singled out and executed. Ung then turned his attention to the rescue of surviving relatives, and the rebuilding of the tradition of Khmer court music. This required training refugee artists adept in folk music the style and skills of the music which accompanies the court dance. From 1980-1985, Ung transcribed and learned pieces from old LP recordings and became skilled at performing on the Roneat Ek (high xylophone), the lead instrument in the Pinpeat ensemble. He performed with surviving Cambodian musicians and dancers throughout the U.S., including a performance at The White House.

Integrating native and folk elements into traditional “art” music is a device that many composers have used throughout the history of Western music.  The Turina Scène Andalouse, featured later on in this program, is an example of this.  As the influence of Western culture spread during the course of the twentieth century, new frontiers opened in compositional possibilities, especially in the merging of Eastern and Western traditions.  Chinary Ung speaks on this topic:

I believe that imagination, expressivity, and emotion evoke a sense of Eastern romanticism in my music that parallels some of the music-making in numerous lands of Asia.  Above all, in metaphor, if the Asian aesthetic is represented by the color yellow and the Western aesthetic is represented by the color blue, then my music is a mixture – or the color green…  Composing for me is truly a spiritual path.

Khse Buon marks a watershed in Ung’s compositional output.  The events in his homeland caused Ung to stop composing in 1974; Khse Buon is the only piece he wrote between 1974 and 1985.  Susan Ung says of the piece: “Khse Buon was commissioned by Marc Johnson, cellist of the Vermeer Quartet, and grew out of an interest in the various sound characteristics of stringed instruments from Asia, including the Iranian ut, the Japanese koto, the Cambodian tro, and the Indian saranghi, as well as an interest in improvisation. Khse Buon represents a landmark in Ung’s career as a composer. In this piece, the composer created an open-ended form with the intention of embracing the expression of many cultures in a singular, new musical “language.”

Steven Schick, percussionist and Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego wrote the following about Khse Buon:

In Khse Buon, distinctly Cambodian musical elements convey the architecture of the piece, and Asian principles in general are honored: drones and modal melodies revolve around single notes that are colored and ornamented by micro-tonal inflections. However, there is none of the contemplative exoticism that we in the West have learned to associate with the sounds of Southeast Asia. Khse Buon is serrated. It is melancholy. It resonates with the memories of those who were lost.

-Program notes by Dr. Daniel Doña