Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This proposed paper will examine how Cambodian artists are working to renew and extend engagement with traditional music at the village level. In particular, it will analyze the impact of Arn Chorn Pond in training poor young people as musicians and, with his Khmer Magic Music Bus (KMMB), bringing free traditional music performance and education to rural Cambodians. In addition to suffering from decades of civil unrest, historians estimate that 90% of the musicians, dancers, and artists died under the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime from 1975-1979. In their attempts at healing, remembrance, and empowerment, Cambodian artists have been using traditional culture to deemphasize the collective memory of the KR years, and shift Cambodians’ identity from victims of genocide to producers of global culture. As a child Arn Chorn Pond survived the KR by playing music to entertain his guards then escaping to a Thai refugee camp. Arn was adopted by an American clergyman and in order to heal himself told his story as an advocate for human rights. Returning to Cambodia he co-founded the NGO Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) in order to find, support, record, and provide teaching opportunities for elderly musicians. CLA has also commissioned new operas performed in urban venues in Cambodia and Western cities. Realizing that many villagers had never heard traditional music, Arn started the KMMB in 2013. This paper asks if this availability of traditional culture might restore a positive cultural heritage to rural Cambodians.