Photo by Robin S. Kent

2004 NEA National Heritage Fellow Chum Ngek Gaithersburg, MD Cambodian musician and teacher

Chum Ngek is both an artist and a teacher known for his performing ability on the roneat, a 21-keyed xylophone. Born in Battambang Province, Master Chum came to this country in the early 1980s with a wave of Cambodian refugees and has served as a musical and educational leader of his community ever since. At the age of ten he began learning the repertoire of the major Khmer musical genres, spanning classical and folk traditions. In addition, he learned the music of the kong (gongs), khimm (hammered dulcimer), sampho (two-faced drum), and tror (bowed fiddle). Soon his repertoire was so vast that many people were asking him to teach and at age eighteen he was recognized as a Krou (master teacher). National Heritage Fellow Sam Ang Sam points out that because he is acknowledged as the source for Cambodian music, Master Chum is frequently called on to conduct music workshops across the continent. Still, he continues to serve his more immediate community, as he single-handedly provides musical instruction in the Washington, DC, area, teaching for the Cambodian Buddhist Society and the Cambodian American Heritage organization.

 
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NEA Heritage Fellows
1982-present: 
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