Where Elephants Weep
Singer: Marc de la Cruz; Music by HIM Sophy; Libretto by Catherine Filloux; Produced by John Burt
The title song of Where Elephants Weep, a Cambodian Rock Opera (2007)
HIM Sophy
Click this image for a link to Sophy's school
from Survivor to Composer
HIM Sophy''s timeline:
1963: Born in Reak Chey Commune, Prey Veng Province in a musical family.
1972: Started learning piano in Phnom Penh with two French professors.
1975: Was forcefully relocated to S’dau Kaong commune in Prey Veng when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge.
1979: After the fall of Khmer Rouge finds an old harmonium in a trash bin near his house that he repaired and played.
1980: Resumes his piano study at Cambodia’s Secondary School of Fine Arts.
1985: Wins scholarship at Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, where he composes one symphony, two concertos and many other fine pieces of music.
1998: Was awarded a Ph.D. in Composition and Musicology and returned to Phnom Penh.
2001 Was awarded prestigious grant from Asian Cultural Council for visiting scholar to the USA.
2007: Completes Where Elephants Weep, a Cambodian Rock Opera (after 7 years of work) which was performed in the USA.
2008: Where Elephants Weep is performed in Phnom Penh.
2014: Opens Him Sophy School of Music where 400 students have studied.
2017: Completes Bangsokol- a requiem for Cambodia, which is performed in Melbourne, New York (BAM), Boston in 2017 and Paris (2018), and Phnom Penh (2019).
2022: Initiates the idea of adapting Where Elephants Weep for the 2020s (Cambodian) audience.
Creations
HIM Sophy also created the Cambodian chromatic system, which was embodied in the gong and roneat (developed together with Scot Stafford).
Additionally, HIM Sophy initiated the rebuilding of the long lost Angkorian harp, which was further developed by Patrick Kersale and Keo Sonankavey.