A Courageous Voice With Global Impact: Arn Chorn-Pond Visits Rivers as Hall Family Speaker

Chorn-Pond’s visit was part of his tour, “Commemorating 50 Years of Healing Through the Arts,” through which he shares his extraordinary firsthand experience with survival, resilience, and healing through the power of music. A survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1970s Cambodia, he endured the horrors of war and personal loss, and he now speaks to the power of the arts to connect people and nurture compassion. 

Chorn-Pond had the opportunity to engage with students and the professional community through an all-school assembly and programming on campus throughout the day, including visiting with performing arts students from chorus, orchestra, and jazz band to speak about using the arts as a tool for connection, healing, and peace. He gave a presentation for parents and caregivers the evening before. The events were led by members of the Global Education Scholars special program, a program designed for juniors and seniors committed to fostering a globally aware and inclusive school environment by bringing awareness of international relations to the Rivers community. The Global Education Scholars helped prepare the community with background materials and guided advisory conversations in advance of Chorn-Pond’s visit. Global Education Scholars also led Q&A sessions and arranged discussion sections during advisories, and BRIDGE leaders led a discussion the following day.

“Arn Chorn-Pond embodies a profound generosity, offering his whole self to everyone he meets,” said Director of Global Education Andrea Villagrán. “His presence is a force of unconditional love and dedication. I feel fortunate that our students, along with me, were privileged to share in his testimony firsthand.”

Tragedy and resilience mark Chorn-Pond’s life story. As a child enduring the Khmer Rouge radical communist movement, he was sent to a child labor camp where he and other children worked from 5:00 a.m. until midnight with little food. He described being housed in a Buddhist temple where children were made to witness executions several times a day. It was in this camp that music both scarred and saved him. Forced to play propaganda songs, he shook with fear with each performance, afraid to play even one wrong note for fear of being killed. From this terrible time, Chorn-Pond recalls a few moments of light. He spoke about his passion for rock and roll and love for music, which he shared with his younger brother and sister. When his instruments were taken away and replaced with guns, he escaped to the jungle, surviving among leeches and tigers, following monkeys to find their food sources. 

Eventually, Chorn-Pond ended up at a refugee camp on the Cambodia-Thailand border, where he met Reverend Peter Pond, a native of New England who had been working with refugees at the camp. He brought Chorn-Pond to the United States, settling in the state of New Hampshire, and later formally adopting him. Assimilation was a struggle, but Chorn-Pond found community and meaning through music and service.

After graduating from Providence College, Chorn-Pond returned to Cambodia on a mission to reconnect with his family’s artistic legacy, including the Cambodian opera and his childhood music teacher. While there, he learned that his family had not survived, and he found Cambodia’s few surviving master artists, many of whom were living in poverty. That discovery inspired the creation of Cambodian Living Arts (CLA), the nonprofit he founded to preserve and revitalize Cambodian performing arts traditions. What began as a grassroots effort to safeguard endangered performing arts has grown into a global cultural movement. Today, CLA inspires new generations of artists while connecting communities worldwide through music, storytelling, and the belief that art has the power to heal.

At both the evening presentation and the assembly, Chorn-Pond closed with a short performance of a lullaby on the bamboo flute and an invitation to visit Cambodia.

“Hearing Arn speak was both tragic and poignant,” said Soren Brockman ’27, one of the Global Education Scholars. “His story uncovers a part of history that is often forgotten in the U.S., and I think that’s what made it so powerful. Especially inspiring was his message at the end: to love one another, to remember that we are all the same and that everyone endures suffering.”

Rivers Jazz Director Phillippe Crettien attended both the parent/caregiver and assembly presentations. “It was such a pleasure to meet Arn, such a sincere and compassionate man,” said Crettien. “His message of transforming trauma through art and music was so powerful. His life’s work through CLA is truly inspiring. He moved me and many students with his sincerity and his realistic depiction of genocide in Cambodia.”

“If we do not preserve stories like Arn’s, they risk being forgotten,” said CLA Head of Marketing and Fundraising Phacdey Phary, who joined Chorn-Pond at Rivers and travels with him on his U.S. tour. “His journey shows us that peace can begin with the smallest acts of kindness—and that music has the power to heal, connect, and inspire generations to do good.”

Chorn-Pond’s message was emphatic: to inspire love, hope, connection, and solidarity through music and storytelling. “Give love instead of hate,” he said. “Love is a wonderful and beautiful feeling.”