Khon Kaen Youth Music Festival · Call for Bands

The Khon Kaen Youth Music Festival returns this December its tenth year. The festival celebrates the music of Isan and invites young musicians to explore new ways of traditional sounds with modern styles.

Bands must have between three and eight members, all must be aged 13 to 20. Each band will perform a fifteen-minute set, which must include at least one original song or new arrangement of a traditional piece.

this year, bands that use traditional songs must show that they have permission from the songwriter or the songwriter’s family. The festival wants to support young musicians also respecting the people who created the music they love.

Three bands will be chosen to record their performances in a professional studio. Recordings will be shared online, and any income will be divided between the bands and the songwriters a written agreement.

Applications close on 30 September. you have questions, please contact the festival office.

My Grandfather’s Song · by Pond Saensuk, Grade 11

Fifty years ago, my grandfather wrote a song about a young woman waiting for her husband to return from working in Bangkok. He sang it in villages all over Isan, but it was never recorded. last month, almost nobody under forty had heard it.

When our band needed an original song for the Khon Kaen Youth Music Festival, I asked Grandpa we could use it. He agreed on one condition: we could change the music, but not the words. “The words are her story,” he said. “They are not mine change.”

We added drums, electric bass and a slower rhythm, but we kept every line exactly he wrote it. During rehearsals, I began to understand the song for the first time. It is not only about one woman. It is about thousands of families in Isan have been separated by the need to find work.

On festival night, Grandpa sat in the front row. When we finished, the audience stood up and cheered. I looked down and saw that he was crying. Afterwards, a woman about his age came up to him and said that the song her own story.

Now our version may be recorded. We have agreed that most of the money will go to Grandpa, he was the one who created it. But for me, the greatest reward has already arrived: a song that been forgotten is alive again.

Khon Kaen Youth Music Festival · Saturday 14 December · Bueng Kaen Nakhon Lakeside Stage

16:00 Opening: traditional khaen ensemble from Ban Sawathi School 16:30 Band competition, part 1 (six bands) 18:30 Dinner break · Isan food market open 19:30 Band competition, part 2 (six bands, including The Phin Generation) 21:30 Guest performance: legendary mor lam singer Kham Saensuk 22:15 Announcement of winners

Free entry. Seating is first come, first served; please bring a mat. The festival will continue in light rain but may be stopped if there is lightning. Please take all rubbish home or use the recycling stations.

From Village Nights to Festival Stages

Mor lam, the traditional song form of Isan and Laos, has always been more than entertainment. For generations, travelling singers performed through the night in village temples and squares, accompanied by the khaen, a bamboo mouth organ. Their songs told stories from Buddhist tales and local legends, but they also carried news, gave advice about love and farming, and sometimes criticised the powerful in clever, indirect ways.

In the second half of the twentieth century, as millions of people from Isan moved to Bangkok and other cities for work, mor lam travelled with them. In factories, construction sites and taxi ranks, the music became a sound of home. Songs about separation, homesickness and hard work became especially popular.

Over time, the style changed. Electric guitars, drums and keyboards were added. Large touring shows with dancers, costumes and lighting replaced the single singer with a khaen. Some older listeners regret these changes, arguing that the stories have become shorter and the lyrics less poetic. Others see the changes as proof that mor lam is a living tradition rather than a museum piece.

Today, young musicians are experimenting further, mixing mor lam with hip-hop, rock and electronic music. Some of these songs have attracted audiences far beyond Thailand. At the same time, questions about ownership have become more important. When a young band records an old song, who should be credited, and who should be paid?

What remains constant is the music’s role as a voice for the people of Isan, a way of remembering where they come from, wherever they go.

Festival Review: A Night When Generations Met

This year’s Khon Kaen Youth Music Festival was the best in its ten-year history, and the most memorable moment came from a band of teenagers playing a song older than their parents.

The Phin Generation, from a local secondary school, performed “Waiting at the Station”, a song written decades ago by the veteran mor lam singer Kham Saensuk, who is the grandfather of the band’s phin player. The band added drums and bass and slowed the tempo, but kept the original lyrics without a single change.

The result was remarkable. The modern arrangement gave the song a new energy, while the words, about a woman waiting for her husband to come home from Bangkok, felt as true as ever. Several older audience members were seen wiping their eyes.

Some traditionalists will argue that drums have no place in mor lam. But this performance showed that respect for tradition does not mean refusing all change. It means knowing what is essential and protecting it.

The judges awarded the band second place, behind a talented electronic group from Udon Thani. Many in the audience, however, felt the night belonged to The Phin Generation. When Kham Saensuk himself took the stage later in the evening, he invited his granddaughter to join him. It was a perfect ending to a night when the past and the present sang together.