Arn Chorn-Pond survived the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in part through music. Now he uses music as a means of peacemaking and trauma healing, both personally and for his country. Raised in a family centered in Cambodian opera, when the Khmer Rouge came to power he was taken away from… Read more »
Category: Music Festival
Zoe Mulford, Joan Baez and Jeff Scher
Following the 2015 mass shooting at “Mother” Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Zoe Mulford wrote an evocative song about the shooting and President Barak Obama spontaneously singing “Amazing Grace” during the memorial service. Joan Baez included it in what is reported to be her final album “Whistle Down the Wind” released in March… Read more »
Mai Khoi
Vietnamese folk singer Mai Khoi was arrested in March 2018 after returning from a tour in Europe (click here for the BBC report on her arrest). She has a pop song about Vietnamese girls and her love for Vietnam, but has turned into a searing critic of repression of freedom of speech. With her new… Read more »
March For Our Lives Music
On March 24, 2018 students across the United States mobilized marches against gun violence and for gun control legislation. The students of Margery Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida had survived a horrible shooting that took the lives of 17 of the classmates and teachers. They turned their sorrow into energetic anger to drive… Read more »
Cranberries’ “Zombie”
I stumbled across The Cranberries on the NPR Tiny Desk Concerts. They played their hit “Zombie” from the ’90s. This Irish band was obviously coming from their own context in a song with strong words about the pain of violence and the deathly numbing of our brains as we silence ourselves: “When the violence causes… Read more »