The Royal Ballet of Cambodia and the Myanmar National Symphony Orchestra will team up for the first time next week for two nights of concerts at Angkor Wat.
The French Embassy and the Apsara National Authority—which manages the Angkor Archaeological Park—will present “Fondamentus, Dream Event 2013,” which will be staged at Angkor Wat on December 5 and 6 with the support of Unesco, the Institut Francais and a host of corporate donors, organizers said Tuesday at a press conference.
Held to mark the 3rd Intergovernmental Conference on Angkor taking place December 5 in Siem Reap City, the concert produced by the French organization Khloros Concert will be staged on the northwest side of the monument.
This area has not previously been used for a concert, said Apsara Authority spokeswoman Chau Sun Kerya. “French conductor Odile Perceau identified this as a location where the acoustics would be good,” she said.
As Ms. Perceau explained, the Burmese musicians, playing in Cambodia for the first time, will stand on several levels of the monument during the concert, towering over the dancers. The event will also feature the French quartet Quatuor des Equilibres, she said.
The dancers will perform a work from the traditional repertoire and a new classical dance choreographed by Princess Buppha Devi who heads the Royal Ballet. They will also stage a work choreographed by King Sihamoni whose first calling in life was dance, Ms. Kerya said.
The conference, co-chaired by France and Japan, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Coordinating Committee of Angkor created during the first intergovernmental conference in 1993 to spearhead efforts to restore Angkor after the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement.
The concert on December 6 will be televised on CTN and also shown live on a giant screen in the park next to the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Free tickets are still available for that day’s event.
