Ros Sereysothea (Khmer: រស់ សេរីសុទ្ធា) (1948 – 1977) was a famous Cambodian singer during the nation’s thriving cultural renaissance. She sang from a variety of genres but romantic ballads emerged as her most popular works. Despite a rather short career she is credited with producing hundreds of songs and even starring in a few movies. Details of her life and fate during the Khmer Rouge is relatively unknown but it is generally accepted she did not survive.

With the cultural upheaval by the Khmer Rouge, scant evidence of Ros Serey Sothea’s life remains. Her master recordings were either destroyed by the regime or deteriorated rapidly to the tropical environment due to lack of preservation. However, many vinyl recordings have survived and have gained reissues initially on tape cassettes and later on compact discs. Unfortunately many of these reissues are also remixed with extra beats usually overriding the original score. The vinyls from the master sources are thereby highly sought out by preservationist and collectors.

Nonetheless Sothea remained extremely popular even after her death in Cambodian communities scattered throughout the United States, France, Australia and Canada. Western interest in Sothea would not dawn until songs by Sothea, Sinn Sisamouth and other Cambodian singers of the era such as Meas Samoun, Choun Malai and Pan Ron, were featured on the soundtrack to Matt Dillon’s film City of Ghosts. Tracks by Sothea are “Have You Seen My Love”, “I’m Sixteen” and “Wait Ten Months”. The Los Angeles band Dengue Fever, which features Cambodian lead singer Chhom Nimol, covers a number of songs by Sothea and other singers from the short-lived but rich Cambodian rock and roll scene. The advent of the internet, undoubtly saved what was left of her discography while spreading and garnering interest in her music even after almost half a century later.

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Lê Hồng Nhung, born March 15, 1970, is a Vietnamese singer. She is one of the four divas in Vietnamese music, along with Thanh Lam, My Linh, and Tran Thu Ha. She is also known for her performance of composer Trinh Cong Son songs. Hong Nhung was born in Hanoi, deserted by her mother before she was a year old and brought up by her grandmother. Her father was a bohemian figure who drifted in and out of her life, never contributing much money for the food and clothes she was so short of. Nhung had a good voice, though, and when she was 11 she sang her first song on Vietnam Radio. At 17 she made her first album, and by 21 she was starting to make a name for herself. At the age of 10, she was admitted to the vocal class of the Hanoi Youth Culture House. In 1981, she started recording with Radio the Voice of Vietnam. She became known as a promising young singer with songs Nhớ Về Hà Nội and Papa, a Vietnamese cover of the Myo song. In 1991, Nhung moved to Ho Chi Minh City. She met composer Trịnh Công Sơn in 1992 and began to perform his songs with a new style, creating a wave in Vietnamese music. Hồng Nhung is living in Ho Chi Minh City. -wikipedia

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Slank is an Indonesian rock band. It was founded in 1983 by some teenagers in a small street in Jakarta called Gang Potlot. They had played rock music everywhere until they got an opportunity to make an albumn. Bimbim created Cikini Stone Complex in early 1980s. This band only performed Rolling Stones song and not from another band. Then, they broke up late 1983 because of boredom.Accompanied by his colleague Denny and Erwan, Bimbim made Red Devil. For the guitarist Bimbim brought Bongky. In December 1983 they changed their band name became Slank because they are looked selengean.

Formed in Jakarta in 1983, Slank—the group’s initial lineup was Kaka (vocals), Pay (guitars), Bongky Marcel (bass), Indra Qadarish (keyboards), and Bimbim (drums) — would play their trade for a number of years before finally landing a deal and releasing their first album, Suit suit…hehehe, in 1990. From there, more albums, most of them commercially successful, followed, but Slank was plagued by a number of defections, some involving personal issues, others having to do with internal tensions based around creative decisions. The negativity was overcome, and over the next 20 years, Slank was able to increase their profile, touring the world and maintaining a high commercial value. In 2007, Slank released album number 20, Slow But Sure. Suit suit…hehehe (1991) was an enormous hit. Their subsequent success inspired the formation of other bands, such as Dewa. Their first three albums, awarded by BASF Indonesia as The Best Selling Albums on BASF tapes and the fourth album Generasi Biru went multi-platinum, with several songs making in into Indonesia’s top charts. Slank became the first MTV Indonesia icon in 2005.

Since its inception, Slank’s band members have changed frequently. Reasons have ranged from drugs uses, woman, money and differences in musical styles. The most popular line up of the band has been Kaka (vocals), Bimbim (Drum), Abdee (Guitars), Ivanka (Basses), Ridho (Guitars). In 2008 Slank has been touring the U.S. and Europe. They have also played in various Asian countries, such as Thailand, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. Having more than fifteen albums sold and occasionally causing political controversy in Indonesia, Slank decided to travel to the USA to record their first English-speaking album, Anthem for the Broken-Hearted. Blues Saraceno is chosen to be their producer of this album. They record and mixed the album in only twenty-two days.
“If you want the world to see what you want to say, you better go to the highest mountain. And for music, the highest mountain now is in the U.S.A.”, says Abdee Negara

For more than two decades, Slank has managed a healthy attitude towards their music career, which in turn has helped them throughout the years. Slank has also gained somewhat of a cult status in Indonesia, Slank fans are known as ‘Slankers’, and they have a reputation for devotion. They waved their Slank flags, which consist of the word ‘Slank’ shaped into a graffiti-style butterfly. They sang along with several punk-rock songs and performed a stadium-worthy call-and-response routine. According to one of the guitarists Ridho, “Slankers” span all ages from children to adult. -Wikipedia

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Noy Vanneth (born 1964) is singer in Cambodia who has been performing for more than twenty years. He sings for Rasmey Hang Meas and other productions. His genres are pop, ram vong, cha cha, lam lao, in particular the songs of Sin Sisamouth.

Cambodian pop music, or modern music, is divided into two categories: ramvong and ramkbach. Ramvong is slow dance music, while ramkbach is closely related to Thai folk music. In the province Siem Reap, a form of music called Kantrum has become popular; originating among the Khmer Surin in Thailand, kantrum is famous for Thai and Cambodian stars like Darkie. Modern music is usually presented in Cambodian Karaoke VCDs, usually of an actor, actress or both making the actions, usually by mimicking the lyrics to the background song by moving their mouth as if they were actually singing the song. Noy Vannet and Lour Sarith are some of the modern singers who sing the songs for use with the Karaokes usually of the songs composed by Sin Sisamouth or others, in addition to the songs sung and composed by Sin Sisamouth himself. -from Wikipedia

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Amita Marie Young (born Su Min Ta Marie Young, December 14, 1980), better known under her stage name Tata Young, is a Thai singer, model actress and dancer. She gained prominence when she placed first in a national singing contest at age 11, subsequently signing a record deal and releasing her first album Amita Tata Young in 1996. Within five months, the album had sold over one million copies. Since then, Young has released eight studio albums, three in English and five in Thai. Her most recent album is Ready for Love, released on August 25, 2009.

She has acted in three films, The Red Bike Story (Jakkayan See Daeng), O-Negative and Plai Tien as well as the TV drama The Candle (Plai Tiean). She sang “Reach For The Stars” at the Bangkok opening ceremony for the 13th Asian Games in 1998 and also sang the English part of the title song for the Bollywood movie, Dhoom. Tata was born to a Thai mother and an American father in 1980 and by the age of eleven had won her first national talent contest, the Thailand Junior Singing Contest. By the age of fourteen she had signed her first professional contract and released her debut million selling album in 1995. This led to her winning multiple awards at the Thai Radio Vote Awards in 1996.

In 2004, Tata released her English-language debut album, I Believe on Columbia Records. The first single taken from the album was “Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy”, which was controversial in Thailand. In Malaysia, she had to change the name of the tune to “Sexy, Naughty, Cheeky”. Further single releases from the album included ‘I Believe’ and ‘Cinderella’ She expanded her reach to India, recording the song, Dhoom Dhoom, for the soundtrack to a Bollywood movie, Dhoom. Dhoom, whose OST album sold over 800,000 units in India, was a phenomenal success for a soundtrack. Later, she embarked on her Dhoom Dhoom tour. In Taiwan, Tata became the first Thai artist to be invited to perform at the Golden Melody Awards – Taiwan’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards. In Hong Kong, China and Japan, “Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy” and “I Believe” climbed to the top of the charts.

Her second English-language album, Temperature Rising was released in August 2006; its first single was “El Nin-YO!”. The album includes songs composed by Diane Warren, Paul McCartney and Natasha Bedingfield. In 2007, she recorded her single “Zoom” in Simlish for the top-selling PC game The Sims 2: Seasons.Tata has also lent her voice to humanitarian causes, including the AIDS program of Father Joe Maier’s Human Development Foundation and MTV’s Exit campaign to end human trafficking. In early 2008, Tata Young released her sixth Thai album. The headline single “One Love” was released on Valentine’s Day.

-Condensed from Tata Young’s Wikipedia biography

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“Global Sounds/Asian and Pacific Bodies: the International Circulation of Music”
by Dr. Ricardo D. Trimillos, UHM School for Pacific & Asian Studies

7:00 pm, 15 June 2011
Architecture Auditorium
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

There are a number of different kinds of music that we can consider “global,” that is, a music genre heard in many parts of the world. Pop or commercial music is a type that most often comes to mind when we think of a global reach today. This lecture aims to look at a number of issues related to music and to our musical experiences in Hawaiʻi—what constitutes a global music? How did it become defined as global? And also, how has Hawaiʻi as part of an Asia-Pacific region contributed to or participated in various kinds of global music?

Although global music today are almost always assumed to be sounds distributed through mass media, the circulation of musicians or “live bodies” through touring is an earlier form of globalization that continues to be important today. In this presentation, I discuss the ways the performer as a physical body affects both the actual sound of the performance but also the way in which a performance is received by an audience or by observers. In recent years academics have turned with a renewed interest to the body, particularly the physical body. Two ideas about the body will form the basis of our considerations: the body as a canvas whose physical appearance can be changed or given different meanings; and the body as a machine that does work that can be changed or given different meanings. These two ideas are manifested in globalized music in interesting ways.
The world of classical music with its non-stop travelling of world-class artists is one instance. For example, within two months an artist such as Yo-yo Ma can perform the same concerto in Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Honolulu’s Blaisdell Concert Hall. We will consider the ways in which Asian and Pacific “bodies” are part of the opera world.

As a second category, there are many worlds of pop music, whose origins are certainly in the West but whose production is now world-wide. A question we might ask is: if pop music is created in Hong Kong or in Manila is it still a westernized music? Or is it Cantonese or Filipino, respectively? How does the Asian or Pacific body help to “sell” a global sound, especially one that is commercial?

The notion of the physical body in performance has implications for gender and ethnicity as well as for sexuality and race. We will touch upon the ways in which these aspects are part of musical globalization and also ways in which globalization can impact local cultures, both positively and negatively. The presentation is intended for a general audience. Informal and informative, it includes sound and visual illustrations, many of which are familiar to the Honolulu music scene.

Ricardo D. Trimillos is an ethnomusicologist at the University of Hawai‘i and Director of the Center for Philippine Studies. He has served as cultural consultant for the governments of Malaysia, the Philippines, the former Soviet Union, and Hong Kong. His area interests include the musics of Hawai‘i, the Southern Philippines and Japan. Thematic interests include identity, gender, and cultural advocacy. Trimillos has been a consultant to a number of governments in the area of arts and public policy. He has served as a liaison, bringing indigenous Filipino musicians to national folk festivals in the United States. His publications in three languages include articles on Asian Americans, world music in higher education, cross-cultural implications for the arts, interrelationships of the arts, Philippine ritual and Hawaiian music. As a performer whose principal medium is the Japanese koto, Trimillos has presented concerts of modern and traditional music in the US, Europe, Japan, the Philippines and Australia.

Zaw Win Htut is a Burmese rock, country, and blues singer, and the lead vocalist of the band Emperor.

Zaw Win Htut was born into a musical family in Yangon, Myanmar. His father Kyi Khin was a physician, and his mother Tin Aye was a famous folk singer with the stage name Htar. His maternal grandfather was Shwe Taing Nyunt, a famous songwriter of classical Burmese music. His nickname was Nyi Htut. He received a bachelor’s degree in English from Yangon University.

Zaw Win Htut began his career in music as a drummer in a band called Oasis. He formed his own band, Emperor, in the 1980s with five members, Zaw Myo Htut (his brother and lead guitarist), Cin Khan Pun (bass), Wai Tun (drums), Maung Maung Lwin (keyboards), John O’Hara (acoustics). He was strictly a country, rock and roll singer in his early career. His first album, released in 1983, was not a success. His third album Hlyatsit Moe Kaungkin, released in 1989, made him a star.

Like most Burmese pop singers, Zaw Win Htut became famous with Burmese language covers of foreign (mostly Western rock and pop) hits, written by successful cover “songwriters” such as Thukhamein Hlaing, Min Chit Thu, Win Min Htwe, Saw Khu Sae. Unlike most Burmese pop stars, this grandson of Shwe Taing Nyunt was actually embarrassed about it. He famously said that singing those songs were like wearing someone’s else shirt. In a 2004 interview he said that his goal was to make original music.

He decided to make only “original” (i.e. non-cover) albums in mid 1990s. He was one of the first in the Burmese pop music industry to break away from taking the easy route of cover songs. (To be sure, some successful singers like Sai Htee Saing and Soe Lwin Lwin never recorded a cover song.) He did score a few hits with A-Hnaing-Me and Achit Mya Thu Si Mha. Nonetheless, his contrition has limits. He continues to perform his famous cover hits in concerts although he performs only the original songs in his overseas concerts. In a 2010 interview, he admitted that he refused to do any concerts overseas for many years because he did not have a sufficient number of original songs, and that he began doing overseas concerts only after he had collected enough original songs. In the same interview he said he had done over 20 overseas concerts. In 2000, he introduced the blues to his records.

“Though their profession calls for them to strut onstage like rebels, Burma’s rockers can only mime the anti-establishment part. Zaw Win Htut works in the sanitized vacuum of a country run by military rulers who view him automatically as a threat, a potential subversive, because he holds a microphone. Burma’s cultural input is zealously monitored and artistic expression heavily censored.” ”As one of Burma’s biggest rock stars, Zaw Win Htut faces constant government scrutiny of his lyrics, album covers and music videos, but some of his biggest clashes concerned the length of his hair.” -taken from Wikipedia

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Many credited the band for reviving the Singapore local indie music scene. They’re proud of that, too. After all, it’s for the love of music they started this journey in 2003. It’s a blessing to bring together a group of people who share the same passion and this was what they got – So Much More Inside (2004), Hip City (2006) and their latest effort We Satellites in 2008. Always challenging and exploring new sounds with each new project, their rewards include 3 acclaimed albums, two no.1 hits and numerous top 20s -that showcase their evolution, and a whole lot of fans.

Props to the music channels for believing in and helping Electrico, also know as ECO spread their music beyond our shores and kudos to the band for working their asses off touring the Asian circuit, and flying the Singapore flag at the coveted South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Texas in 2007 while spreading some of their magic to Los Angeles at the same time.

Electrico became the first Singapore band to receive a nomination at the 2005 MTV Asia Awards and a second in 2008 which culminated in awards for the Top Local Pop Song (for Runaway) at the 13th annual COMPASS (Composers & Authors Society Of Singapore) awards – the 3rd time in as many years – which also saw Dave taking the honors for the Young Composer of the Year.

With recognition came responsibility, and the lads gave back- undertaking a community project for troubled teens in the same year. The online single Everybody’s Here – a child of the project.

Veterans in the local music scene, but definitely still learning. It helps that these self-confessed music and stage junkies, are friends before musicians. And perhaps that’s what keeps their sound evolving, adding new dimensions to their music and taking their fans along for the ride.

Electrico are – Dave Tan (vocal & guitar), Desmond Goh (bass guitar) and William Lim Jr (drums). (Taken from bands bio page)

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Quang Lê was born in Vietnam, with family roots from Central Vietnam in the City of Huế. He is the third son in a family of 6 siblings, and one adopted sister. His family immigrated to the United States in 1991, and initially settled in Missouri. His family then moved to Orange County, California. Although Quang Lê had been singing at a very young age, it was not until the year 2000 that Quang Lê decided to become a singer professionally.

Prior to appearing on the Paris By Night stage, a musical production created by Thúy Nga Productions, Quang Lê sang for a smaller music production called Ca Dao. He released three albums with Ca Dao singing “Quê Hương” songs such as “Ngại Ngùng”, “Em Ve Voi Nguoi”, “Chim Sáo Ngày Xưa”, “Tinh Cha” and “Lối Thu Xưa”. He was even given the opportunity to sing with a very famous female Vietnamese singer at the time, Phi Nhung, on two songs entitled “Ngày Đã Đơm Bông” and “Ngau Hung Ly Qua Cau”. Quang Lê had submitted a video to Thúy Nga Productions but at the time, they did need singers to perform “Quê Hương” songs. He waited two years before he received an invitation to appear in Thúy Nga’s Paris by Night 66, entitled “Người Tình va Quê Hương”, an opportunity that opened all doors for Quang Lê and started his journey to becoming one of the top selling artists within the Vietnamese music industry.

Quang Lê is a devout Buddhist and performs at many temples around the world, often for fundraising events. A major event which Quang Lê frequently participates in is “Lễ Hội Quan Âm” at the Việt Nam Buddhist Temple in Sugarland, Texas, located in the suburbs of Houston. Quang Lê also gets invitations from overseas Temple such as in France and Australia to perform. Quang Lê was approached by Nguyen Dat, vice president of the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple to release a Buddhist CD. In early 2009, in time for Lễ Hội Quan Âm, Quang Lê Entertainment released “Giót Nước Từ Bi” (Tears of Compassion), an album dedicated to Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

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