Daran Kravanh, a Cambodian accordionist, has been playing concerts and speaking engagements with his wife, Bree Lafreniere. Lafreniere has written a book telling Kravanh’s many stories of avoiding death and the meeting horror of Pol-Pot’s regime and the Khmer Rouge.
I found Kravanh’s stories fascinating and horrifying. Edifying and an important reminder of the evil in the world.
Kravanh has a disc of music and Lafreniere has her book. Both are titled Music Through the Dark, you can find more information here.
After taking power in 1975, Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. Their goal was to create a purely agrarian-based Communist society. People who lived in cities were deported to the countryside where they had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. Even after losing power following a Vietnamese military intervention in December 1978, the Khmer Rouge still maintained control in some regions of Cambodia. Between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians are estimated to have died by murder and starvation, especially the intellectual elite, during these years. The United Nations later declared what happened in Cambodia the largest per capita loss of life in the twentieth century.
Bree learned quickly Daran used music, specifically accordion music, to survive his ordeal. It was like a sign to Kravanh when he found his accordion on a stump in the forest considering the rarity of such an instrument in the Asian country.“There are not many accordions in Cambodia,” Kravanh said.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yaEls97vn8]
Here is a Public Radio Exchange story about Kravanh.
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