Tuesday, October 6th, 2026 at 7.30pm — Chandler Hall
We are delighted to invite you to A Concert for Cambodia, an evening of film and music in aid of the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children, KCDI, hosted by our founder Catherine Louise Geach with the music of composer Stephen L. Melillo.
Concert Program
- Introduction — In Khmer and English, by Catherine Louise Geach, founder of the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children, KCDI.
- Excerpt of Film — Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia – John Pilger. Warning: this excerpt may contain disturbing scenes.
- The Music — When Broken Glass Floats, by Stephen Melillo.
- Reading from When Broken Glass Floats, Author, Chanrithy Him (Cambodian Genocide Survivor) – Read by Catherine Louise Geach.
- Archive Film Excerpt — O, Phnom Penh.
- Performance — O, Phnom Penh – Catherine Louise Geach, Violin (Cambodian Song).
- BBC Archive Film about the Kampot Traditional Music School.
- Performance — Plyve Kacha Po Tsynyi – Catherine Louise Geach, Violin with the Music of Stephen L. Melillo.
- Short Film by Ian Wiggins, on the Kampot Traditional Music School, today.
- Performance — Phnom Preneath Preah – The Sight of God – by Stephen Melillo & Catherine Louise Geach, Violin.
- Short Film excerpts — Traditional Shadow Puppet Performance with ancient sung Prayer introduction, Ancient Yiké Performance, Traditional Cambodian Ballet and Folk Dance Performance – Children & Staff of KCDI. Performance, August 2024, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of our School, in the presence of the British Ambassador and Secretary of State for Culture, Royal Kingdom of Cambodia.
- Performance, Sacred Work, Ancient Manx Gaelic — Don Oiche ù imBeithil – That Night In Bethlehem – Catherine Louise Geach – Soprano.
History of the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children – KCDI
The Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children – KCDI, was founded in 1992 and built in 1994, during the Cambodian Civil War in Southwestern Cambodia. Whilst the School was being constructed, Kampot was shelled during a battle between Khmer Rouge and Cambodian Government forces. During the opening ceremony, it was considered too dangerous for the Ambassadors of Great Britain, Canada and Japan to attend, nor could the Minister of Culture to Cambodia attend. Two of the Cambodian officials with whom Catherine worked in rural areas were executed by the Khmer Rouge. During the war, there was no running water and electricity was rationed. There was a 3pm curfew on the main route from Kampot to the capital, Phnom Penh.
The Kampot Traditional Music School was founded to preserve and revive Traditional Cambodian Music and Performing Arts after the devastation of the Khmer Rouge Genocide, when ninety percent of Cambodian Artists were executed or perished from starvation and disease between 1975-1979. Cambodia was then afflicted by the Civil War, which lasted until 1999. Cambodia has an ancient and rich cultural history dating over 1500 years, with the Angkorian Empire (1000 years ago) stretching over modern-day Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. The Traditional Cambodian Music and Performing Arts were not written down, but passed down through centuries from Master to pupil, thus the Khmer Rouge Genocide nearly annihilated Cambodian Culture.
The Kampot Traditional Music School is a Cambodian-run organization working closely with the local authorities and is a member of International Childsafe, taking full-time care of the most vulnerable of Children: those who have been abandoned, abused, who are completely orphaned, those with parents in prison, those who are affected by HIV, and those Children who have been living on the streets, and who have nowhere safe to live. Our School also takes care of Children who are affected by a disability, including our project for Blind Children and Youth. For over three decades our School has taken care of Children, providing them with loving care, academic education, high-level tuition and vocational training in Cambodian Music and Performing Arts, as well as vocational training in other areas and higher education. We have a network of former students who are professional musicians and dancers, as well as employed in other professions, and who now have Children of their own.
Our School does not have any expatriate overheads or administrative costs, so that each donation goes straight to the heart of our School and to our Children, without any waste. Each person who Donates is of vital importance, helping us keep our School open and running. For further information, read our history and our audited annual statements on our Financial Statements page.
How to Donate to Our School
Our School uses the 501(c) online Washington-based platform, GlobalGiving, to raise funds for our School. We have been using this platform for 13 years. We are a vetted NGO, and we received the UNESCO World Decade for Cultural Development.
What Donations are used for
All Donations go towards providing our Children in Residence with nourishing meals, medical care, accommodation, school materials, electricity, water, clothing, transport, Childcare and Tuition in Traditional Cambodian Music and Performing Arts and Emergency Temporary Shelter and Emergency Food Packages for Children in the wider community.
Other ways to give are listed on our Support Us page.
Acknowledgements
With Special Thanks to Kristian Quillon and Jenna Lyons and all our Technical Team for their amazing technical help, skills and good-will. Without them, this Concert would not be possible.
With Profound Gratitude to Composer Stephen Melillo, for his generous Gift of his Beautiful Music and for his Timeless support and eternal Kindness towards our School.
With very many Thanks to Hassan Smith who so kindly put all the audio and video excerpts together for me.
With much Gratitude to the Diehn School of Music, ODU, for their generosity in helping, and to Tristian Mann-Morris.
I would also like to thank Author Chanrithy Him, for her kind permission for me to read the excerpt of her extraordinary and powerful Book, When Broken Glass Floats.
My Gratitude to His Excellency Iodom Youk Chhang – Director for the Cambodian Center of Documentation of the Cambodia Genocide, for his kind permission to show the archive film, O, Phnom Penh.
My Thanks to the BBC.
Much Gratitude to dear Souls such as Brielle Marlow and everyone at the Global Friendship House.
And my Eternal Gratitude to my dear Staff and Children of my School, for all they have given, and for the many decades through War and Peace that we have grown together.
Som Ah-Kun
Catherine Louise Geach – Founder
About the Artists
Catherine Louise Geach
Born in England, Catherine Louise Geach began the Study of Violin and Classical Ballet at the age of 4, giving her first concert a year later. Performing as a Soloist with Orchestras and Musica di Camera, she attended masterclasses from the age of 5 with P° David Takeno (Guildhall), then with P° Felix Andrievski (Yehudi Menuhin School & Royal College of Music). She won a Scholarship to study Violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London when she was 15, with Singing and Piano as her second studies. She studied Violin with Professors Maurice Hasson and Xue Wei and had Masterclasses with P° Zakhar Bron (Moscow Conservatory), studying and later performing the Bruch, Beethoven, Paganini and Sibelius Violin Concertos.
In 1990, at the age of 18, she went to Cambodia, during the Civil War, to compile a report on the Violation of Human Rights by the Khmer Rouge. She was allowed by the Cambodian Government to enter areas affected by War to document the devastation and suffering of the civilian population. For her documentation, The Aid and War Report, she was awarded the Bernard Brett Peace Bequest, London. Graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 1991, she returned to Cambodia in the same year and began teaching Violin at the University of Fine Arts. In 1992, she founded the Khmer Cultural Development Institute. In 1994, during the Civil War, she founded and built the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children, in Kampot Province, Southwestern Cambodia. She was director for over 10 years and, as its Founder, she continues to help raise funds and assist her Cambodian colleagues with both Cultural and Childcare Programs. All her activities for the School have been given freely.
From 1996-1998, she founded a Music, Dance and Art Therapy Program at the Mesa Selimović primary School at the end of the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, for Children who were suffering severe PTSD. The program then became part of the School curriculum and was carried on by dedicated Bosnian staff there. She was given the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award in New York in 1999.
Her Solo Album, A Wish for Love for the World, BAM Records, Switzerland (Solo Violin Partitas & Sonatas of Bach and Sacred Sung Works of Saint Hildegard of Bingen), was released in December 2021. She was featured Solo Artist (Violin & Soprano) for The Grey II-III Album (2021), Love Conquers All Album (2022), The MASS and Embracing Sorrow Album (2022-23), all by renowned American Composer Stephen L. Melillo. Catherine performs all over the world as a Concert Violinist, Soprano and Recording Artist, performing as Solo Violinist at Carnegie Hall in February 2025.
Stephen Melillo
Stephen L. Melillo is a world-renowned composer, whose over 1,434 works include five symphonies, concerti, and over 68 hours of Music for Ensembles of the 3rd Millennium™. A three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee – including for Holodomor and Symphony IIII: Lightfall – his honors include multiple Gold Global Music Awards, a Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Epic/Orchestral Music, and the LIT Award for Excerpts from the Ahab & Death to Moby Dick Love Stories.
His album STORMWORKS Chapter 89: Worlds Within the World earned dual Silver Medals for Composer and Creativity/Originality in the 2024 Global Music Awards. Film credits include the Academy Award-nominated 12:01 PM and One Little Finger (Telly Award, 2019). Three Telly Awards in Biography, History & Music (for Kakehashi: That We Might Live) in 2009. Gold AVA Award (for Kakehashi: That We Might Live) in 2009.
A recipient of the ASCAP Concert Award every year since 1992, Melillo’s STORMWORKS has reached thousands worldwide through word of mouth. His 59 albums and 8 books continue to celebrate imagination, resilience, and the power of music. An Exhibition of his Historical Work, Kakehashi: That We Might Live, is housed in the main atrium of the Diehn School of Music, Old Dominion University.
