Nuon Kan

Nuon Kan was a Cambodian writer, composer, and professor of music and performing arts, who escaped the Cambodian genocide, which annihilated most of the musicians and scholars of his generation. He is the author of a popular patriotic hymn entitled the History of Khmer People. Biography Nuon Kan was born on June 18, 1937, in Sangkat 4, Phnom Penh. He joined the Cambodian Writers’ Association in 1958. With a scholarship from the Asia Foundation, he went to study performing arts and directing in France, where he studied under the guidance of Pierre Valde from 1961 to 1965. In 1965, he was invited to join the East-West Seminar organized by the International Theatre Institute at the UNESCO. In 1967 he graduated in performing arts from the Sorbonne. In 1968, he joined the recently founded International University Center for Dramatic Training and Research (Centre universitaire international de formation et de recherche dramatique) under the direction of Jack Lang in Nancy, where he received his master’s degree, before returning to Phnom Penh. In the 1970s, during the Khmer Civil War, he was a professor on contract with the Royal University of Fine Arts, and he was appointed acting direct