Arn Chorn-Pond: A Life of Music, Healing, and Hope

Join us for an evening with Arn Chorn-Pond, musician, human rights activist, and peace advocate. Arn will share his story as a child during the Khmer Rouge regime and how music saved his life and the role of the arts in transforming society on a wider scale. 

He was born in Battambang province in Western Cambodia in the 1960s, and grew up in a family of artists. During the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, free expression through music and arts was banned in Cambodia. 90% of the country’s artists were killed during the years of the regime, and overall around 2 million people died. Arn was separated from his family and sent to a children’s labor camp. He was taught to play propaganda music, and credits this with saving his life.

Arn believes in the vital power of music and the arts to heal and to transform; in terms of individual people, communities, and whole countries. He has dedicated his adult life to this cause – founding the organization Cambodian Living Arts in 1998. Originally, Cambodian Living Arts worked to revive the country’s endangered traditional art forms, and pass them on to the next generation. 20 years later, they offer scholarships, fellowships, grants, exchanges and more, and acting as a catalyst for creativity and innovation, helping artists today to write the stories of Cambodia’s future.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the SSU Asian Student Association. 

Admission is free but advance reservations are strongly encouraged. Register for this event.

Location: The Recital Hall, located on the ground floor of the Classroom Building at 71 Loring Avenue.

Parking is available directly across the street from 71 Loring Avenue. Event guests are welcome to park in this lot.