Cambodia is a country known for its extraordinary art and architecture, and the kindness of its people. Its ancient city of Angkor, with its beauty and genius in one of the seven wonders of the world. But between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia with misguided policies and cruelty. In those years, three of the seven million people died. The United Nations was later to declare what happened in Cambodia the largest per capita loss of life in the twentieth century.

In 1992 Bree Lafreniere, then working in the Refugee Assistance Program in Tacoma, Washington, met Daran Kravanh, a refugee from Cambodia. He had lost his parents and seven siblings to the Khmer Rouge. Though Daran's stories were tragic, Bree was captivated by their power and beauty and set out to explore them. In the hundreds of conversations to follow, it became evident that the vehicle for Daran's survival was music. More specifically it was an accordion, an instrument rare in Cambodia but one Daran found on the stump of a tree.

A C.D. of music accompany the text. Music Through the Dark, a story in music and words, is the result of the exploration of Daran's survival and of those things that reveal our humanity to even the most brutal of men.

Music Through the Dark, published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2000, has been used as a textbook in colleges and universities including the Evergreen State College, Northwestern University, California State University, UCLA, Pacific Lutheran University, South Seattle Community College, and the University of California at Irvine.