As a child, Arn Chorn-Pond survived the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime by playing revolutionary songs on the flute. Today, he is an internationally recognized human rights leader and speaker, the recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Anne Frank Memorial Award, and the Kohl Foundation International Peace Prize. He is also the subject of the Emmy-nominated documentary, The Flute Player.
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Music saved Arn’s life in the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields. He was separated from his family and put in a work camp with five hundred children. Arn was one of six chosen to take khim lessons from an elderly musician the soldiers brought to the camp. After a week, the soldiers decided the old man had taught enough and killed him. Arn learned enough to play for the soldiers in the evenings, and believes those performances allowed him to be among the fifty children who survived the work camp.
He managed to escape to a refugee camp, where he was adopted into an American family. Arn emerged as a crusader for world peace and children’s rights. He received numerous international awards for his work, and spoke all over the world on behalf of Amnesty International.
In the 1990s, Arn returned to Cambodia to work on humanitarian programs. A stunning 90% of Cambodia's traditional artists had died during the years of the Khmer Rouge and the years of famine and hardship that followed.
Arn became aware that some the great masters he remembered from his youth had somehow survived Pol Pot’s madness. However, in the crushed economy, the traditional performers could not revive their art.
Arn located performers who had been household names before the Khmer Rouge years but now lived in poverty on back streets. Arn knew if these few survivors died without passing on their knowledge, his country’s musical heritage could disappear forever. When Arn returned to the US in 1996, he began the effort that grew into the Cambodian Living Arts.
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Arn tours the country twice a year, in the fall and spring, to speak at schools and institutions about his life and work. To arrange for Arn to speak at your institution, please contact Jodi Solomon Speaker's Bureau.
Watch the Flute Player Now- click on the video below:
