The excerpt below is taken from the article "If Cambodian Can Learn to Sing Again" by Patricia Cohen from the New York Times, Sunday, December 18, 2005, Arts section. (Subscription required for full article.)
“For seven years now, the two [CLA founder Arn Chorn-Pond and CLA Founding Board Chair John Burt] have been working to record and teach Cambodia’s arts, in part by finding performers and putting them to work as mentors for a new generation. So far they have tracked down 20 master musicians in 10 provinces, who are working with 300 students. A Cambodian Buena Vista Social Club.
Yet the men quickly realized that simply preserving the ancient arts wasn't enough, that without creating original work, the music would be like a pinned butterfly. They needed to provide new commissions, inspire new young artists...
So Mr. Burt, who is a producer as well as a philanthropist, came up with the idea of commissioning a new kind of opera that would shift the familiar focus from the Killing Fields and embody their project; it would integrate Cambodian and American, modern and traditional music, instruments and styles. He chose opera because it is one of the most popular forms of musical theater in Cambodia."