The amazing concerts put on by the New England Conservatory feature differing musical styles and traditions that span the globe, all thanks to the exceptional diversity of the NEC faculty and students. Arson Fahim, who is set to graduate later this year, organized the third Concert in Solidarity with Afghan Musicians with an orchestra of more than 100 volunteer performers and premieres of new works by Afghan composers. Fahim joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the performance and how it came to be. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: You left Afghanistan to study here just weeks before the Taliban returned to power. The Taliban hate music and banned it right away. And if I understand correctly, this piece is all about that right?
Arson Fahim: It is. I remember arriving here, and about 10 days later, Kabul falls, and overnight, I feel like I lose my country. I mean, I’m a musician. It’s who I am. It is the core aspect of my identity. And suddenly, that became a crime in my own country. And that was such a hard thing to do it. And whenever I have such a hard thing, I want to sit at the piano and music. And that’s what happened, I started just sitting at the piano and playing that melody, and it eventually turned into an orchestral piece. But the image I kept seeing in my head was the mountains surrounding Kabul. They’re so majestic and so beautiful, yet I just kept thinking that even these majestic, grand mountains must feel broken inside at some point after so much back-to-back war and violence. And that was just the image in my mind as I played through that piece and eventually put it on paper.
Rath: This is the third Concert in Solidarity with Afghan Musicians. I’m wondering how it first took shape, this idea, and how you went from that impulse to organizing a concert that now has over a hundred performers.
Fahim: I got here on Aug. 2, 2021, and then on Aug. 14, the Taliban took over. I had so many conflicting emotions. On one hand, I was so grateful to have so many new opportunities that I would have never had back home. But on the other hand, I felt like my life and life for so many Afghans had suddenly changed so drastically, and yet everything around me was going on so normally. At the same time, I felt so much guilt that I was away from my own homeland, from my family, from my friends, from my musician colleagues that were now in danger. And kind of combining these two emotions, the feeling of guilt and the feeling of seeing people around me not care the way I was expecting, just naturally led to this concert, which was a way both for me to raise my voice as much as I can, and to raise awareness about what the Taliban are doing, specifically what the women in Afghanistan face and what artists in Afghanistan face under their brutal regime.
Rath: I’m curious about that because one thing that’s really striking about this project is you’re commissioning traditional musicians still inside Afghanistan, basically working underground. I’m just curious as much as you can say safely how you did that and how dangerous it is for these musicians right now.
Fahim: It’s very dangerous for them. It’s not uncommon for the Taliban to persecute musicians and to even kill them in public. Just a couple of weeks ago, they announced that they had destroyed hundreds of instruments and they publicly set them on fire just to remind people that music is still a sin. This means that for the musicians, they have to be in hiding. They have no way to make a living. They can’t really play publicly. What I find so immensely inspiring is that even with that kind of danger, these musicians decided to keep on playing, even if that meant in secret and even if it meant risking their lives. I hope there is a day where I can share these videos and they’re at a safe place and I can share their names, but for now they will remain anonymous and their music will come to life through the orchestra.
Rath: That has to feel amazing to be able to give it a voice here.
Fahim: I think what feels really amazing is to remind Afghans and to remind everyone that music can’t be silenced. It’s such an essential part of human life, of society. It’s so beautiful. It brings people together. We’ve had music for longer than we’ve had language. And I think that all just goes to show that music cannot be banned. When the Taliban were last in power, they had banned music. And the day that they lost power, people were out in the streets, dancing and listening to music. And I’m just looking forward to the day that that happens again in Afghanistan. I don’t think a society without music can exist for too long.
NEC
Rath: Let’s talk about the music, this beautiful music itself. I think a lot of people don’t realize how diverse music is from Afghanistan. You know, that was the old Silk Road, where a lot cultures are coming together.
Fahim: Yeah, that’s one of the beautiful things about Afghan music, that it’s so diverse. Different parts of Afghanistan have various styles that they play with different rhythms, different modes and different instruments. And if anything, that makes it really hard to figure out what Afghan music is. But I think to me, the essence of it is joy. There is just so much joy in Afghan music. And that’s also really inspiring because for a country that’s been at war for so long, the music, when you hear it, you wouldn’t guess it. You feel like these people are just full of joy, celebrating, full of love. Give an Afghan an excuse to play music and dance, and they’re going to take it. Back home, any smallest excuse to celebrate anything would turn into this place of love, music and dance. And I think that to me is the core of the music. It comes across in the rhythms, it comes across and the melodies. And I also think it comes across in the spirit of the Afghan people.
Rath: What styles or impressions about Afghan music are you hoping that people come away from this concert with?
Fahim: Well, I think more than just styles of music. I’m hoping that audiences can connect to Afghanistan in a way that you just can’t by simply reading the news. I think people read the news, hear about Afghanistan, they hear about whatever the latest tragedy is, but it somehow feels so disconnected. We forget that we’re talking about real humans who have emotions, who express joy and sorrow and feel everything that we feel, and one of the beautiful things about music is that it helps us connect to other people and kind of reminds us that we’re talking about people here and these people feel things and they express these feelings with music just the way we do. Just remember that Afghanistan is not just the war that we read about. It’s much more than that.
