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The Mandalay Myo-ma Amateur Music Association will hold a tribute concert to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Myo-ma Nyein, the Burmese composer and musician universally recognized as the pioneer of classical music in Burma who aspired to create the country's first national symphony orchestra.
The concert, which will feature many of the composer's best-known works, will be held at the Mandalay Myo-ma Amateur Music Association Theater in Mandalay on Dec. 30.
Myo-ma Nyein
Myo-ma Nyein died in September, 1955, his dream of a national orchestra combining performances of traditional Burmese and Western classical music still unfulfilled. He was regarded as the first Burmese musician to learn Western musical notation and orchestral arrangement. Many regard him as one of the greatest musicians in Burmese music history.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, writer Nyi Pu Lay said, “Sayar Myo-ma Nyein was the only one of his era. I believe his songs and art will live forever. So many people, including youngsters, still appreciate his music, and that shows his creativity was modern and brilliant.
“He was a well-versed musician. Burmese artistes should take a lesson from him because he encouraged us to learn both Burmese and Western classics,” he said.
Tin Win, a 60-year-old violinist who played in the Myo-ma orchestra, said, “I regarded Sayar Nyein as a talented musician. Our Myo-ma orchestra must try its best––despite the current music trends––to maintain traditional Burmese music.”
“He was a pioneer,” wrote Ludu Daw Amar in her book “Pyi-thu-chit-thaw Anu-pyin-nya-shin-myar” (Artists whom the People Loved”). “Myo-ma Nyein spent his whole life working for the formation of a symphony orchestra. Before him, no songwriter created musical arrangement.
RECOMMEND (15)
TEXT SIZE
The Mandalay Myo-ma Amateur Music Association will hold a tribute concert to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Myo-ma Nyein, the Burmese composer and musician universally recognized as the pioneer of classical music in Burma who aspired to create the country's first national symphony orchestra.
The concert, which will feature many of the composer's best-known works, will be held at the Mandalay Myo-ma Amateur Music Association Theater in Mandalay on Dec. 30.
Myo-ma Nyein
Myo-ma Nyein died in September, 1955, his dream of a national orchestra combining performances of traditional Burmese and Western classical music still unfulfilled. He was regarded as the first Burmese musician to learn Western musical notation and orchestral arrangement. Many regard him as one of the greatest musicians in Burmese music history.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy, writer Nyi Pu Lay said, “Sayar Myo-ma Nyein was the only one of his era. I believe his songs and art will live forever. So many people, including youngsters, still appreciate his music, and that shows his creativity was modern and brilliant.
“He was a well-versed musician. Burmese artistes should take a lesson from him because he encouraged us to learn both Burmese and Western classics,” he said.
Tin Win, a 60-year-old violinist who played in the Myo-ma orchestra, said, “I regarded Sayar Nyein as a talented musician. Our Myo-ma orchestra must try its best––despite the current music trends––to maintain traditional Burmese music.”
“He was a pioneer,” wrote Ludu Daw Amar in her book “Pyi-thu-chit-thaw Anu-pyin-nya-shin-myar” (Artists whom the People Loved”). “Myo-ma Nyein spent his whole life working for the formation of a symphony orchestra. Before him, no songwriter created musical arrangement.
Well-known Burmese author Sue Nget also paid tribute to the Mandalay-born songwriter. “His great aim was to form a symphony orchestra,” he said. “But his dream of a national orchestra has still not been realized in Burma. He and his best friend, Dartan U Thant, believed that Burma needed to learn Western musical notation and that traditional Burmese songs needed to be composed with a Western arrangement.”
“He envied and praised Beethoven’s music about nature, and he tried to combine classical Burmese verses and poems with sophisticated international compositions that ordinary people would appreciate,” said Sue Nget. “Actually, his works and ideas are still as influential to Burmese music as the sun and moon."
Born in 1909, Myo-ma Nyein developed musical skills early on in life. He took up the banjo in the years when the world was bopping to the new rhythms emanating from the United States, and when he was only 19 he founded Burma’s most popular band, Myo-ma, a moniker which he later adopted as his own name.
While open to Western music and the classics, Myo-ma Nyein also remained true to Burmese tradition––the “Mahagita,” or “Great Music,” a collection of verses and songs passed orally from one generation to the other over the past three centuries.
His struggle to create a truly representative, internationally respected body of musicians led him into a series of political as well as cultural entanglements with successive Burmese regimes.
Nyein’s eclectic tastes in music, particularly his love of Western classics, also got him into trouble with conservative elements that resisted non-Burmese cultural influences, including several popular traditional musicians who stonewalled his newfangled musical ideas.
His difficulties mounted in 1953 when Burma’s post-independence government, the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, or AFPFL, accused him of pro-communist sentiments after he wrote a song for a World Peace Conference gathering in Beijing. “From now on, I’ll only write songs about love,” he quipped.
Myo-ma Nyein was not only a champion of free musical expression but also a rigorous defender of his own artistic freedom. He refused an offer by the AFPFL of a teaching post at the state-run art college because he feared having to compromise his principles.
His refusal led to increased AFPFL surveillance, and suspicion of communist tendencies hung so heavily over him that when a Chinese cultural exchange group presented him with a collection of Chinese stamps in recognition of a classical Burmese song, he hid the gift and it was only uncovered after his death.
Myo-ma Nyein's influence did not stop with music; he was also involved in Burmese cinema.
“He envied and praised Beethoven’s music about nature, and he tried to combine classical Burmese verses and poems with sophisticated international compositions that ordinary people would appreciate,” said Sue Nget. “Actually, his works and ideas are still as influential to Burmese music as the sun and moon."
Born in 1909, Myo-ma Nyein developed musical skills early on in life. He took up the banjo in the years when the world was bopping to the new rhythms emanating from the United States, and when he was only 19 he founded Burma’s most popular band, Myo-ma, a moniker which he later adopted as his own name.
While open to Western music and the classics, Myo-ma Nyein also remained true to Burmese tradition––the “Mahagita,” or “Great Music,” a collection of verses and songs passed orally from one generation to the other over the past three centuries.
His struggle to create a truly representative, internationally respected body of musicians led him into a series of political as well as cultural entanglements with successive Burmese regimes.
Nyein’s eclectic tastes in music, particularly his love of Western classics, also got him into trouble with conservative elements that resisted non-Burmese cultural influences, including several popular traditional musicians who stonewalled his newfangled musical ideas.
His difficulties mounted in 1953 when Burma’s post-independence government, the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League, or AFPFL, accused him of pro-communist sentiments after he wrote a song for a World Peace Conference gathering in Beijing. “From now on, I’ll only write songs about love,” he quipped.
Myo-ma Nyein was not only a champion of free musical expression but also a rigorous defender of his own artistic freedom. He refused an offer by the AFPFL of a teaching post at the state-run art college because he feared having to compromise his principles.
His refusal led to increased AFPFL surveillance, and suspicion of communist tendencies hung so heavily over him that when a Chinese cultural exchange group presented him with a collection of Chinese stamps in recognition of a classical Burmese song, he hid the gift and it was only uncovered after his death.
Myo-ma Nyein's influence did not stop with music; he was also involved in Burmese cinema.
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