Eb Chea Our music teacher and Maestro.

The Music and Dance School was introduced in 1997 after the coup. The children were traumatized and even older ones were wetting their beds and displaying other post trauma syndrome symptoms. On the advice of a western psychiatrist, Geraldine was advised to use the arts to calm them and this worked almost instantly. When the children could see that they could dance and play their traditional music they were transformed into confident and captivating performers. We perform locally at hotels for functions, weddings and other Buddhist festivities.

Want to book us for your next function in Phnom Penh? Send us a message via our Contact Us section.

In 2002, through the generosity of John Singleton, an Australian entrepreneur, who paid for all our airfares, we performed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts to sell-out performances. It was a resounding success and we are planning to travel again with 50 of the students plus teachers in September 2007, again to Adelaide to perform again in schools and for the public in general to raise funding.

Our strategy is to ask schools to advance $6000 each towards the airfares and on arrival we will perform concerts at their schools, where they will sell tickets to students, teachers, parents and the public, which will more than recoup their $6000, with Sunrise keeping what is left over. At the time of writing we already had 3 schools willing to be part of this plan and we are sure by the time we want to fly that other schools will come to join us to make this visit a reality.

Should there be any South Australian Schools reading this who want to take part, please contact Brenton Whittaker through our Contact Us page.

Eb Chea in the photo above, our beloved original music teacher, is now retired, due to age and ill health, but is on a Sunrise pension and often visited by staff and children.

Sunrise Children's Village (August 2004).

2004. 2004. 2004. 2004. 2004. 2004.

Adelaide Arts Festival, Australia (2002). (All costs for this visit were generously donated)

2002. 2002. 2002. 2002.

Sunrise Children's Village: Ta Khmao (June 2001).

Dance practise. Dance practise. Practising traditional Cambodian music. Music teacher Maestro Eb Chea demonstrates traditional Cambodian music. Dance practise. Traditional Cambodian dancing costumes used by the Sunrise children. Sunrise friends and music teachers enjoy a moment together. Sunrise children practise Cambodian dance in traditional dress.