His early years of piano study (1970 to 1975), were interrupted when the Khmer Rouge civil war broke out and it was not until the fall of the regime that Sophy was able to resume his music studies in 1981. In 1985, he received a scholarship to study music composition in Moscow, Russia, and spent the next 14 years there, obtaining a PhD in Composition in 1998. Sophy’s major works include Memory From Darkness which he wrote in 1990, inspired by his own life and the atrocities he witnessed during the Khmer Rouge era. The world premiere of Memory From Darkness will be performed by the internationally renowned New York New Music Ensemble this July 3rd at 7pm, at the Intercontinental Phnom Penh, as part of Cambodian Living Arts’ Cambodian-American Friendship series of concerts. This piece will also be recorded and published as an album by Cambodia Living Arts.