About Patrick Kersalé …
Patrick Kersalé is both an ethno-archaeo-musicologist and a musician. He has spent the past 30 years traveling around the world (primarily in West Africa, Southeast Asia, India, Nepal and Europe) in order to seek traditional music at risk of disappearing in order to preserve the memory and to develop programs for cultural conservation.
Since 2009, he has been studying the musical instruments of the Angkorian period through iconography, epigraphy, archaeological objects, but also through synchronicities, defined by quantum physicists as “remarkable coincidences of events linked by a meaning". Based on this research, he reconstructed the extinct instruments that existed between the 7th and 16th centuries, including several typologies of harps, zithers, cymbals, drums, horns and conchs.
The results of his research are now published on the various sites mentioned below.
He is a member of the Society of French Explorers.
Websites
SOUNDS OF ANGKOR - Bilingual French-English scientific site dedicated to Cambodia's ancient music and dance. An invitation to discover 2,500 years of religious and secular music, some already disappeared, others in the process of extinction.
CHAPEI DANG VENG - Research publication site of Patrick Kersalé developed on behalf of UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia after the lute chapei dang veng and its community were inscribed on the list of intangible heritage requiring urgent safeguard.
BRONZE DRUMS - This website is dedicated to the bronze drums of Southeast Asia and China. It's a tool for the general public, specialists but also governments around the world for education and fighting against traffics. It is based on an exclusive research by French economist Jacques de Guerny.
KHMER HARP - English and Khmer website dedicated to the Khmer harp (pin) reconstituted by Patrick Kersalé in 2012 after its disappearance at the time of the fall of Angkor in the 15th century. Its objective is essentially to promote and accompany its practice.
PRESTIGE ART KHMER - This site represents a collective of craftsmen, master craftsmen and Franco-Khmer researchers. Its goal is to create high-end crafts inspired by the art of the ancient Khmer Empire. The craftsmen are the depositories of a rich know-how, especially around the manufacture of the old musical instruments of Cambodia.
YouTube channels
GEOZIK - Partially bilingual French-English YouTube channel. For millennia, so-called traditional music and dances accompany the profane or religious acts of everyday life. GEOZIK invites you to discover them: an initiatory journey through space and time ...
TUK-TUK.TV - This English-speaking YouTube channel with some reports in French will immerse you in the heart of Cambodia, its history, its music, its dance and its way of life. It helps you to prepare your trip to this country, to understand the soul of its inhabitants, to discover ancestral know-how and remarkable artists.
