Photo credit: Paul Muller Hahl
Dr. Ahmad Sarmast
Founder and Director, Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM)
Speaking at Closing Luncheon
Dr Ahmad Sarmast is founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), relocated to Portugal.
A musician and member of a renowned musical family, he fled his country in the 1990s, when Afghanistan’s rich musical heritage was abruptly halted by the civil war. Music was forbidden under Taliban rule from 1996 until 2001. Following the nation’s liberation from Taliban rule, Sarmast returned to Kabul to establish ANIM. ANIM offers music education in Afghan and western classical music to students regardless of gender, ethnicity, or social backgrounds.
For over a decade since its founding in 2010, ANIM flourished; its students and ensembles, including the famous all-girls’ orchestra Zohra, toured the world as a beacon of hope and a positive face of Afghanistan’s future. When the Taliban retook power in August 2021, Sarmast worked with an international coalition to rescue the 273 members of the school and re-establish it in Braga, Portugal.
Sarmast is winner of the 2018 Polar Prize. He has also been named Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, and has received other international honors including an Honorary Doctorate from Julliard. Sarmast and ANIM are the subject of numerous media reports in prominent international publications and documentaries.
The target of three assassination attempts, Dr. Sarmast was grievously injured in a suicide bombing at a peace concert of an ANIM ensemble in Kabul in 2014.
Dr. Sarmast received his PhD in Music from Monash University in 2005, and a Bachelor’s and Master of Arts from the Moscow State Conservatory.