WHILE the Penang House of Music (PHoM) cannot open its door to visitors as yet due to the ongoing movement control order, it is still a subject of interest and curiosity notably to a number of organisations abroad.
This can be seen by some good publicity PHoM has received, particularly the works of its founder and director Paul Augustin and his team, during the past 16 months since the pandemic started.
A year ago when a limited number of visitors were allowed, PHoM worked together with some parties on being the venue for live streaming of events such as Penang Lit Fest., Journey of Art, HeriStage, PYDC’s Chap Goh Meh Celebration and also the ACE workshop on Cendana’s grants for the Music & Arts Community.
Augustin is grateful to the tourism and creative office of state executive councillor Yeoh Soon Hin (PETACE) for believing and supporting the work of PHoM as they strive to sustain and preserve Penang’s and Malaysia’s intangible heritage for future generation.
“Covid-19 has made us think differently. Our gallery is suffering as we cannot accept visitors right now. But on hindsight, our resource centre is growing and it is the heart and soul of the Penang House of Music.”
“Our focus has shifted more now to research, on documenting and digitalising our collection for our library and archives. There is actually a lot of work to be done as we work on building our repository for posterity and for the future generation,” Augustin told Buletin Mutiara in an interview.
Augustin said their collection has actually grown during this pandemic period as people have been staying home and clearing their houses and discovering old items such as books, magazines, musical instruments, etc, and they have contacted PHoM to ask if they were interested in the items.
“It is not only getting or collecting the items but to know the what, how and why of the item – the importance and value of the item in terms of its history and heritage of Penang and Malaysia. Every item, be it an instrument of music, a photo, a programme book or a photograph tells a story.”
Some of the items that have gone into PHoM’s collection include a St. Xavier’s school exercise book in which guitar chords were drawn and what’s interesting is that the chords were not normal simple chords in most other books. Apparently, this was a book owned by a Bobby Dixion, a British Army personnel stationed in Penang during the 1930s.
In their collection are also “radio request cards of the 1950s to 1970s”, a music score sheet of two songs written in 1952, one of which is with the title “Malaya, Our Country, None Fairer” written by AP Chin, a 1946 “Galahad Song Book” of songs compiled by 1st Penang Rover Crew, old entertainment magazines (Movie News, Filmalaya, Picture Parade, Majallah Filem, Mastika, etc.) and thousands of recordings including a couple of 1960s recording of Rediffusion commercials, early vinyl records of the Merdeka Choir, Radio Malaya/Malaysia and many others.
One of the recent discoveries that was added to PHoM collection is an antique 78rpm vinyl record which according to Professor Tan Sooi Beng’s research and based on Gramophone Record original catalogue is a song titled “Lagoe Selamat” recorded in 1903 which was from a selection of songs that was first recorded by Gramophone Record in this part of the world.
The sound may not be fantastic due to its age and condition but the 118-year-old disc is still a “treasure” to the history of music!
In recognition of the important preservation work done by Penang House of Music, Augustin, who was named as one of the two recipients of the 17th BOH Cameronian Arts Awards Gamechanger last year, has been invited to speak at two major international virtual conferences this year.
One of the invitations came from the Unesco regional office in Bangkok and it is for him to be a panelist in their discussion: Backstage publication and Thailand celebration of the International Year of Creative Economy on Aug 14.
The objective is to showcase prominent successful factors of each organisation from the region to inspire the creative sector in Thailand.
In March this year, PHoM was showcased as one of the case studies in the publication of Backstage: Managing Creativity and the Arts in Southeast Asia. The publication is accessible at the Unesco Digital Library.
Another invitation came from the International Association for Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) president Tre Berney through the recommendation of its Asia/Australasia Coordinator for this year’s Conference – Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).
Augustin has been invited to be a keynote speaker for the IASA Conference 2021 on ‘Closing the gap for a new generation of sound and audiovisual archives’ from Sept 27 to 30. It has been the aim of IASA for more than a century to preserve sound and audiovisual memories.
“It’s an honour and privilege not only for PHoM and me but also Penang, Malaysia as we are being recognised for our work by people and academics outside of Malaysia – internationally! This serves to put Penang on the world map and also shows that Penang is serious about preserving not just buildings and places but also about our intangible heritage and history like music, arts, culture and tradition.
“For the IASA Conference 2021, I will be pre-recording a video to show PHoM’s journey, an introduction of what Penang House of Music is all about. I will touch on two or three key points – what we have, what we do with our collection and how we can share them with the public at large.
Augustin, 61, will also answer questions from the audience after the 40-minute presentation for 20 minutes. He said the IASA virtual conference would be programmed according to the three different time zones, centred on: the America, Europe/Africa, and Australasia.
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) is the coordinator of the programme for Asia and Australasia, while the other institutions picked as coordinators are the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (for Europe), Ghana University (Africa) and Radio y Television Nacional de Colombia (for Americas).
For the Bangkok virtual discussion, apart from the PHoM story, Augustin, who has a wealth of experience will also share about the Penang Island Jazz Festival, which he and his business partner, Chin Choo Yuen, initiated in 2004 and ran for 14 years until 2017.
In 2016, Augustin set up PHoM at the 4th floor of Komtar, renting a space of 6,800sq ft. It houses a gallery, a black box, a research centre and a VR studio.
PHoM had just recently this year worked on two collaborative research documentary videos which were shown for O:PEN, an event organised by Penang Arts Council – one on Penang’s popular rock band The Alleycats, and the other on Hokkien PoTeHi (glove puppet theatre).
“We realise the young nowadays do not like to read. They like to watch videos, so we use a different medium to target them and if they are interested and want further information, we have the information, books and recordings in our library and archives.
“It is no use having things of importance if we do not know what they are and do not share them. Hopefully through this medium which the young are nowadays looking at, it will help to ignite their interest and also to not only tell them but also show them why history and heritage is important to the people and society,” Augustin said.
Being a former musician himself, he has many cherished memories which he likes to share.
Another of his milestones is the book, ‘Just for The Love of It’, which he co-authored with James Lochhead on Penang’s popular music 1930s – 1960s. It was published in 2015 and is in its third print.
Giving talks is nothing new to Augustin as he has been invited to speak on a number of music, festival and music heritage related subjects in several countries such as South Korea, Wales, Finland, Hong Kong, China, a number of local universities and also a TEDx talk before.
Without a doubt, the invitations by Unesco Bangkok and IASA are yet another recognition of his contribution to the arts and culture industry that he will cherish for a long time to come.
Story by K.H. Ong
Pix courtesy of Penang House of Music
