This weekend the International Music Festival Phnom Penh celebrates its 20th anniversary, with four concerts over three days of performances at Raffles Le Royal. Way back in the very different Cambodia of 2003, Artistic Director Anton Isselhadt had the audacity and vision to establish an annual festival of classical music concerts featuring international and local artists, with the aim of bringing together Western and Eastern cultural experiences. LengPleng had the pleasure of sitting down with Anton over shared coffees and many cigarettes for a romp of a conversation that touched on Frederick the Great, Jimi Hendrix, Indian spirituality, the European Enlightenment, Faust, contemporary geopolitics, Genesis (the band), Franz Liszt’s handspan and much more besides – seriously, you should have been there. From time to time we got back to talking about the history and philosophy of the festival, what is on offer this year and how such events get put together.
Even in 2003, Anton was clear on one thing. “This was not a one-time-only thing to do. This only makes sense if we keep doing it; the continuity is more or less the key to success. Today the Cambodian audience makes up between 20 and 50 percent of the audience at our concerts, from every milieu of society. Even in the pandemic we never missed one festival. Myself and the Le Royal food and beverage director measured the 1.5 metre distance between the chairs, we could seat 45 people in masks and the festival went on, following all the Ministry of Health guidelines.
“Each year the festival has a thematic thread tying the pieces together – previous themes have included Beethoven, Music and Migration, Discoveries and Shakespeare. This year it’s simply a celebration of European masterworks to mark the achievement of reaching the twentieth year.
“I like that I have additional opportunities to promote music while giving some context of the history, across the one thousand years of European classical music. For an audience there is the phenomenon of enjoying listening to music – you don’t need to know anything to just enjoy the music in your private experience, just like you can go to an art exhibition without knowing who the artist is. But to gain a better access to what you are hearing – for example tonight Freddy plays bluegrass, but what is bluegrass? Where does it come from, is there a special period? Or folk music – what do you mean by folk? Is it the popular-style music, or the folkloric? So I have the opportunity to give people a little bit more background – what is this music about?
“One year we featured Beethoven – here is an early work, here is a later work – at the same time what’s going on? The French Revolution – that was the spirit of the time. And I talk about classical music being developed through royal courts and the patronage of the nobility, but then the concert hall industry, with regular people buying a ticket and going to a concert, that’s only 150 years old. In the nineteenth century Liszt created the piano recital – nobody had done that before. ‘Le concert, c’est moi.’ He played for two hours and people loved it, and it generated the phenomenon of Lisztomania, like the Beatles 100 years later. Even Johann Sebastian Bach himself was the musical director of a coffee house in Leipzig – yes, the sacred music was in the church, but the secular music was out in the coffee house. People appreciate knowing that sort of background. In some festivals we have an introductory talk an hour before the concert for those who want to join. This year there will be only one, before the finale on Sunday, by Loo Bung Heng from the University of Kuala Lumpur.”
With an annual programme including the regular series of classical concerts in conjunction with The Piano Shop and the festival itself, how does one go about putting these things together? “I’ll tell you a story – there was a French couple who were regular attendees, and once when we had a concert with works by [notoriously difficult composers] Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg they told me oh, we won’t join you for that. I said why? Come and listen and afterwards tell me how you find it. After they said it was very interesting. This might be the reason we’re still going after 20 years. After the Schoenberg give them some Liszt. I cannot, as a responsible festival director, just ask people: what do you want to hear? We must have the confidence, the education, the knowledge, to create good programmes.”
So what is a good programme? “Okay, so ten concerts a year, and one festival each year for 20 years. In every single concert there must be balance. I have a wide knowledge of classical music repertoire and history – and since arriving in Cambodia I’ve learned so much more. When we had the Beethoven festival, I couldn’t be planning to fly in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra or the Berlin Philharmonic. There’s what I want and what I can achieve – that’s one balance to work with; I know the network of classical performers, an on-going changing list but one that I can work with as a colleague, a peer, not merely a concert manager or empresario.
“So to get a creative, colourful programme with a strong theme I need to knock on the doors, ask the musicians. Perhaps I will contact a pianist saying next year I’m looking for Chopin, Opus 12, Etudes, and Liszt’s B Minor Sonata – these are pieces of the highest difficulty. For a high price I will probably get it. For a low price the answer might be “I don’t have this in the repertoire”. But there might be alternatives. So this is another part of the balancing. Flights, performance fees, accommodation – the budget frame is always in danger, every year redefined, and always looks not so bright for the next year. But we keep going. For the 2024 festival I already have the complete programme booked – this is normal. I can’t ask in April for a festival in November, the players are unavailable.”
After all that, what’s actually on the programme this weekend? “Beethoven said: Freedom is the only purpose. And in his Ninth Symphony he used the text from Schiller: all men become brothers. And that’s why we open and close with Beethoven. And to bring full circle, the wind quintet from Bangkok, Chamber Music Ensemble from Slipakorn University, who will open this festival with Beethoven’s Quintet Op.16, opened the first festival back in 2003.”
The Saturday matinee features music by Italian masters with Maria Ivana Oliva (Italy, guitar), contrasting on Saturday evening with French masters featuring Pongpat Ponpradit (Thailand, guitar) and Anton himself on flute. The finale is a German double – Steven Retallick (UK, violoncello) and Loo Bang Hean (Malaysia, piano) performing cello sonatas by Richard Strauss and Beethoven.
“This,” says Anton, “Is a good programme.”
See and hear for yourself – the entire programme is listed here [International Music Festival Phnom Penh] to be performed at Raffles Le Royal.