Himalayan Music Academy

The Himalayan Music Academy is a music school based in Akron, Ohio, founded by Puspa Gajmer, a Bhutanese refugee musician, composer, and cultural educator. The academy is dedicated to the preservation and transmission of traditional Nepali and South Asian musical traditions within the Bhutanese diaspora, while also providing instruction in Western musical forms. It stands as one of the most distinctive cultural institutions to emerge from the Bhutanese refugee resettlement experience in the United States, combining musical education with a broader mission of cultural preservation and intergenerational connection.

Akron, Ohio, is home to one of the largest concentrations of resettled Bhutanese refugees in the United States, with a population estimated at over 6,000 individuals. The city's Bhutanese community, primarily Lhotshampa, has established a vibrant network of cultural organizations, and the Himalayan Music Academy occupies a central place in this cultural ecosystem.

Founder: Puspa Gajmer

Puspa Gajmer's path to founding the Himalayan Music Academy traces the arc of the Bhutanese refugee experience. Born in southern Bhutan, Gajmer was among the Lhotshampa displaced during the crisis of the early 1990s and spent years in the refugee camps in Nepal before being resettled in the United States. Throughout his displacement, Gajmer maintained his commitment to music, performing and teaching in the camps and developing his skills as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and composer.

In resettlement, Gajmer recognized that the musical traditions he had carried from Bhutan through the camps were at risk of being lost. Younger members of the Bhutanese diaspora, immersed in American popular culture and educated in American schools, had limited exposure to the Nepali folk music, devotional songs, and instrumental traditions that had been integral to life in southern Bhutan. The Himalayan Music Academy was conceived as an institutional response to this cultural erosion — a dedicated space where young Bhutanese Americans could learn the musical heritage of their community from experienced practitioners.

Curriculum and Instruction

The Himalayan Music Academy offers instruction in a range of musical traditions and instruments. Its curriculum reflects the hybrid cultural identity of the Bhutanese diaspora, incorporating both South Asian and Western musical elements:

• Traditional Nepali instruments: Instruction is offered in instruments central to the Nepali folk and classical music traditions, including the madal (a hand drum that is the backbone of Nepali folk music), the sarangi (a bowed string instrument used in folk traditions), the bansuri (bamboo flute), and the tabla (a pair of hand drums used in North Indian classical music). The harmonium, widely used in devotional and folk singing in the Nepali tradition, is also a core instrument in the academy's offerings.
• Vocal training: The academy provides instruction in Nepali folk singing (lok geet), devotional music (bhajan), and other vocal traditions. Students learn repertoire from the Nepali folk canon as well as original compositions by diaspora musicians.
• Western instruments: Recognizing the musical environment in which its students live, the academy also offers instruction in guitar, keyboard, and other Western instruments. This dual approach allows students to develop proficiency in both their heritage musical tradition and the musical culture of their adopted country.
• Performance and ensemble: Students are trained in group performance, with the academy organizing ensembles that perform at community events, cultural festivals, and public programs. These performances provide students with practical experience and give the broader community access to live traditional music.

Cultural Preservation Mission

The Himalayan Music Academy's educational mission is inseparable from its cultural preservation goals. The musical traditions taught at the academy are not merely artistic forms but carriers of cultural memory, language, and identity. Nepali folk songs encode stories of agricultural life, seasonal celebrations, love, loss, and devotion that connect the diaspora to its roots in the Himalayan foothills. Devotional music (bhajan and kirtan) maintains religious and spiritual continuity. Performance traditions associated with festivals such as Dashain, Tihar, and Teej — including the Deusi-Bhailo singing tradition of Tihar — require musical knowledge that must be actively transmitted to survive.

The academy addresses a generational challenge that is common across diaspora communities: the risk that traditional arts will be perceived by younger members as old-fashioned or irrelevant. By providing structured, high-quality instruction and performance opportunities, the academy works to position traditional music as a living art form worthy of study and mastery, rather than a relic of a past the younger generation never experienced.

Community Impact

The Himalayan Music Academy's impact extends beyond its enrolled students. The academy has become a cultural landmark within Akron's Bhutanese community and the broader diaspora. Its students and ensembles perform at community celebrations, multicultural events, and public programs, making Bhutanese musical traditions visible and audible in a city where they might otherwise remain unknown. These performances also serve an ambassadorial function, introducing non-Bhutanese audiences to the rich musical heritage of the Himalayan region.

For the Bhutanese community itself, the academy provides a gathering place where cultural transmission occurs naturally — where elders can hear young people performing familiar songs, where musical knowledge flows between generations, and where the sounds of home are sustained in a new land. Parents and grandparents who may struggle with English and feel disconnected from their children's school lives can engage with the academy as a space where their cultural knowledge is valued and needed.

The academy has also contributed to the broader cultural life of Akron and northeastern Ohio. In a region with growing diversity due to refugee resettlement, institutions like the Himalayan Music Academy enrich the local cultural landscape and demonstrate the contributions that refugee communities make to the artistic life of their adopted cities.

Challenges and Future

Like many diaspora cultural institutions, the Himalayan Music Academy faces challenges related to funding, space, and the competing demands on students' time. Operating on limited resources, the academy relies heavily on the dedication of its founder and a small number of instructors. Securing sustainable funding — through grants, community support, or partnerships with established arts organizations — remains an ongoing concern.

The academy also navigates the broader tension within the diaspora between cultural preservation and cultural adaptation. Some students are drawn primarily to Western popular music and may view traditional music as less relevant to their lives. The academy's approach — teaching both traditions and demonstrating the artistic depth of Nepali musical forms — represents a pragmatic response to this reality.

Looking forward, the Himalayan Music Academy aspires to expand its offerings, reach students in other resettlement cities through digital instruction, and develop recording and documentation projects that preserve traditional musical knowledge in accessible formats. These ambitions reflect a vision of the academy not merely as a local music school but as a broader institution for the preservation and promotion of Himalayan musical heritage in the diaspora.

Significance

The Himalayan Music Academy, founded and sustained through the vision and labor of Puspa Gajmer, represents one of the most focused and sustained efforts at musical cultural preservation within the Bhutanese refugee diaspora. It demonstrates that cultural survival in exile requires not only the maintenance of festivals and social customs but the active, systematic transmission of artistic traditions — the songs, instruments, and performance practices that carry a community's emotional and spiritual life. In a small music school in Akron, Ohio, the sounds of the Himalayan foothills continue to resonate.

References

1. Cultural Orientation Resource Center. "Bhutanese Refugees in the United States." https://coresourceexchange.org/
2. Benson, G. Odessa, and others. "Resettlement of Bhutanese Refugees in the U.S." Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 2012.
3. Akron Beacon Journal. Coverage of Bhutanese community cultural activities in Akron, Ohio.
4. Hutt, Michael. Unbecoming Citizens: Culture, Nationhood, and the Flight of Refugees from Bhutan. Oxford University Press, 2003.
5. Henderson, S., and R. Hodge. "Music and Displacement: Diasporas, Mobilities, and Dislocations in and through Music." Popular Music and Society, 2020.