Project Brazen (00:00):
B-R-A-Z-E-N
Tom Wright (00:08):
Hello. I’m Tom Wright, co-founder of project Brazen, Today on project brazen originals, we are bringing you an exclusive interview with Arson Fahim, the composer behind the original soundtrack for our podcast, Kabul falling. The eight part series followed the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last year through the stories of ordinary Afghans who lived it. My colleague Siddhartha Mahanta interviewed Arson in front of a live audience at the PRX Podcast Garage in Boston, finding out about his own journey from Afghanistan, as well as how he developed the soundtrack and what makes his connection to the project as a young Afghan composer so personal and important.
Siddhartha (00:52):
My name is Siddhartha Mahanta. I am a consulting producer at Project Brazen. We, this year have put out a show called Kabul Falling. Essential part of the show is the music composed by Arson Fahim, a pianist, composer, and conductor from Afghanistan. In 2021, only two weeks before the Taliban took control and once again banned music, Arson arrived in the US and started his studies at the Longy school of music, where he was awarded a scholarship.
Arson (01:20):
I was born in the year 2000 in Pakistan. Actually, I was a refugee there. Uh, my family had fled to Pakistan before I was even born. This was in the early nineties during the civil war of Afghanistan. I spent 12 years of my life actually living in Rawalpindi where I went to a school. I had a scholarship studying there. My family would talk to me about Afghanistan -what was going on back there. From time to time I could visit. But you know, one of the most important things that in pretty much my whole life that happened was in Pakistan. And that was watching the pianist. It’s this, uh, 2002 movie by Roman Polanski. And it’s about a pianist in world war II, who is a Jewish, Polish pianist. He’s in danger. He’s about to be killed. And he goes into hiding near the end of the war.
Arson (02:13):
He’s in this hiding spot and this German officer sees him hiding. And before killing him, the German officer asks him, “who are you? What do you do?” Just like ask him a few questions. And he says, well, I used to be a pianist. And, and the German officer says, oh, that’s cool. And turns out there’s a piano right there. So he asks him to play. And he is so captivated by his playing that not only does he not kill the pianist, but he actually helps him survive and brings him food and helps him hide. And he survives the war and who he goes back to playing the piano after the war. And, you know, I watched this movie when I was pretty much a kid, not even really, probably not even really understanding what’s going on. Uh, but I did know that it’s a true story.
Arson (03:05):
And it was just incredible to me that, you know, this, this thing that I had never even seen in my life, like I, it was the first time I ever saw or even heard of a piano can save someone’s life. It was just, I dunno, kind of, kind of made me curious about it. Like, what is this thing? How can it save a person’s life? Like, is it really that powerful? So I kind of developed this obsession with the piano, but, you know, being refugees in Pakistan, piano that was super rare, even more expensive. And at the time, just not possible for my parents to get me piano lessons. One of the things I was most excited about was that I knew there was this, uh, learning center in Kabul where they offered completely free piano classes. The first thing I did was go start taking piano lessons. I remember going to this learning center and entering the building and I could hear the piano. I couldn’t see it, but in the lobby I could hear it.
Siddhartha (04:05):
You remember what, what, what you, what song it was?
Arson (04:07):
Yeah, it was actually, uh, Chopin Études, even though I was very scared, I just opened this door through which the sound was coming. I wasn’t sure if I’m allowed to enter, but I just couldn’t resist. I entered this room and for the first time in my life saw a piano. It was like beautiful. The lid was open and it looked so majestic and you could hear the sound and, and I just fell in love. Like at first sight it was love. I started lessons that same day. Uh, for the next few months I would be spending like six, eight hours a day practicing. Like, that’s all I did pretty much. Like I had just become so obsessed with the piano during lunchtime at the learning center, I would go take my lunch and come back and eat it under the piano. Like that’s how crazy I went for it.
Siddhartha (04:54):
Both of your parents were, were teachers, is that right?
Arson (04:58):
Yes, that’s correct. I am very lucky to have a family that are very open to music, supportive of my career. They, they appreciate music. Unfortunately in Afghanistan, there are families who wouldn’t want their children to become a musician, but that’s not the case with my family.
Siddhartha (05:15):
When it came to your getting to work with us on Kabul Falling. How, how did it happen?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
For me? As soon as Kabul fell, I decided that the only way I can live with myself and still find meaning in my life is by using my music to, for my mission, which is, you know, keeping music alive and fighting for freedom to our music that I had a fundraising concert with like 70 volunteer musicians at my school. I received an email from the producer and he told me that we have this project and we’re looking for a composer. We’ve heard some of your music and we’d love to set up a meeting and talk about it. I remember the thing that really intrigued me about this project, but made me most want to be part of it is, he said that instead of interviewing, you know, all the famous politicians and all the important people who, you know, had in some way, a hand in what happened, we are gonna focus on the people of Afghanistan, people who had to go through it, and what their story was. And that’s what really interested me. That’s what I felt most connected to. And I can, I can relate to those people because in many ways I am of them. I wanted to use my music to raise my voice. And I had this beautiful opportunity to write the soundtrack and express my views through it and raise awareness. What’s about what’s going on in the Afghanistan, through my music, writing the music for Kabul Falling was kind of easy in a way like, of course, no project is ever easy. It takes time and effort, but…
Arson (06:54):
… the emotions are so real, so close that I didn’t have to look for the music too much. It would just come out. They would send me kind of excerpts of interviews to listen to, and to help me like, kind of figure out the vibe for the music. And I was on my way to school, sitting on the train and listening to this. And I burst into tears on the train, just listening to the audio. Didn’t take me a lot of searching to find the right notes, to express how I felt. And luckily how I felt was the emotion that I think Kabul Falling is all about. All of us Afghans who pretty much lost our country overnight.
Siddhartha (07:31):
One of the things that really struck me when we were talking about the sort of main melodies, motifs, is you thought of it as a, as a story, uh, the, the music as a story to sort of, you know, carry us through the show, but as finished work on its own. I wonder if you could talk a bit about how you sort of broke that down.
Arson (07:48):
This main theme is kind of like three main sections. And to me, each section meant something different and you know, it starts with pain and suffering and heartbreak. And then there’s a middle section. The more chaotic section, which to me is, if I’m very specific about it, is about the airport then, in late August, basically about chaos. And, and then the last section is a bit more harder to explain because it’s not about hope or happiness or everything ends good. It’s not the ending of a happy story, but it is about persistence and perseverance. And it’s about as hard as this is right now, we’re going to deal with it and we’re going to get through it.
Siddhartha (08:33):
Uh, choice of instruments. What, what did you use and why?
Arson (08:37):
Yeah, so the main instruments would be rubab and the tabla, which the rubab is the Afghan national instrument and tabla, even though it’s not originally an Afghan instrument is huge in Afghan songs and a huge part of our culture. I added, uh, piano in there, and as a kind of background for the whole thing I have orchestra strings, the whole string ensemble. And one of the cool things about this was that each of these different sections, we had the rubab and tabla player in Germany. We had the strings in Prague. I was in Boston, the flute player was also in Boston. Each of us like were in different parts of the world with each person recorded their parts. And I just like how international it was. And of course, all of Kabul Falling, the whole project was like that. It was from the collaboration between people from all over the world.
Siddhartha (09:31):
You’ve talked a lot about how composing for a podcast, let’s say, is this sort of tricky thing where you’re there to sort of move the narrative along, but you have to be judicious as to when it is the main thing. Talk a bit about writing for under dialogue and for words.
Arson (09:48):
We want to enhance their feeling of whatever is being shown on the screen or being said in the words. We don’t want to be the main thing. Like there are parts where a single note felt enough, parts there are less dialogue happening. I like how, kind of how the music is kind of used as a way to pivot from story to story and kind of bring it all together. And I hope I did justice to their show, but I just needed to be true to how I was feeling and just came out. I mean, right now I can talk about the time signatures and keys and chords and instrumentation and all of that, how I used it, but when I was doing it, I didn’t think about any of that. I just sat down to write music.
Siddhartha (10:30):
Did you feel you could see yourself and their story, or was there a sense of connection on that level?
Arson (10:36):
I cannot say that, you know, I’ve been in that situation that would be unfair to the suffering of the people who are in Afghanistan right now and have been for the past year. But I am Afghan. I love my country. All my friends and family are there. And I left with the dream to come here, study and go back and build my own music school there. And that’s still my dream. I’m, I’m never giving up on that. If I were there at least this guilt of not being there wouldn’t have existed. I would’ve been like I’m here. I’m doing whatever I can, but the thought that something might happen to someone I love, like I just can’t explain how scared I was. Like checking my phone every 30 seconds to see what the new update is.
Siddhartha (11:17):
As you’ve spoken about, the Taliban regime had very specific orientation towards music. Uh, I wonder if you could talk a bit about that.
Arson (11:25):
After about two or three months at this learning center, my teacher was a student at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. That’s the country’s only music school and suggested to me like you should apply to the music school and study there. And that’s what I did. I found this huge community of other Afghans, like me, young Afghans, who are super passionate about music and a challenge that we would face every day that most music schools around the world probably doesn’t face is pressure from the Taliban. They consider music to be Haram, to be a sin, and they don’t allow it. In 2014, our school, uh, was attacked during a concert. Our founder and director, Ahmad Sarmast, he was injured. I was sick that day, so I couldn’t go. And I was taking a nap and I woke up to like hundreds of calls and messages on my phone, like to see if I’ve survived…
Arson (12:17):
…And, and so when you’re like 14 and you go through something like that because of what you love, like being targeted because of what you love. It, it kind of changes you. Even now, uh, since Taliban coming back into power, uh, they’ve been silencing music again. Our school, it was founded in 2010 and it was the only music school in the country. It was one of the only schools where boys and girls studied together. Uh, it was home to the world-famous Zohra Orchestra, the all-female orchestra that toured around the world. And it, it was a, you know, a symbol of freedom and hope for new of Afghanistan. And our school is now a military outfit for the Taliban and all the students were evacuated to Portugal, luckily, so they’re safe, but it’s still so painful that there can’t be music in Afghanistan.
Siddhartha (13:06):
I just, I wondered if you could talk a bit about, you know, in those first couple years of learning piano, learning to perform, um, how gradually you kind of moved into arranging and then composing.
Arson (13:18):
I was just always so interested to move to the next step and do the next thing and play the harder piece and learn another song. Me and three other friends decided to make a quartet like, uh, clarinet, a trumpet, percussion, and piano. I did most of the arrangements for the group. So that kind of helped me develop the skills for writing music, actually on a piece of paper, not just playing them on the piano. Seeing how I was doing that, the school asked me to do arrangements for the school orchestra. So I like eventually writing actual pieces, like original works for the orchestra. So I was taking some conducting lessons. So the school decided to make me the conductor’s assistant. And I did that for about two years. And eventually when he left, I took his place and became the conductor for the orchestras.
Arson (14:05):
During these years that I developed my skills as a musician, as a pianist, as a composer, as a conductor, I feel like developed a lot of the human. First of all, just being in Afghanistan, seeing everything going around me, it made me more and more drawn to doing something about it, saying something about it as a musician. That’s what I wanted to do. And just a simple act of playing an instrument and making music is resistance, is fighting back, is telling the Taliban and other fundamentalists that we are not going to stop. No matter the danger, no matter what we’re going to keep making music. Hopefully we can do it enough Afghanistan again one day, but even if not, they’re me and my colleagues around the world are gonna continue writing music and raising our voices through our music. We have this huge burden of keeping Afghan music alive and not even just life would help it flourish until it can return to its home…
Arson (14:54):
…one day. In the long term, my dream is to have my own music school in Bamiyan. It’s the province where the big Buddhist statues were. And in 2001, the Taliban bombed them and completely destroyed them. I see such a powerful symbology and powerful message and having a music school where they destroyed culture and art and history, but then starting this again at the same spot, it’s kind of strong message of no matter what you do, it’s gonna flourish again. And, and that’s what me and other Afghan musicians around the world are going to do. We’re not going to give up.
Tom Wright (15:34):
Thanks for listening. You can find Kabul Falling on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe to Project Brazen Originals. There’ll be more bonus episodes coming soon.
