The Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) is a school of music in

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

, Afghanistan. It was founded in 2010 by the Afghan-Australian ethnomusicologist Dr.

Ahmad Naser Sarmast Ahmad Naser Sarmast is an Afghan-Australian ethnomusicologist. He is the founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. Early life and education As his father, Ustad Salim Sarmast, was a famous musician, composer and conducto ...

, and offers a curriculum combining the tuition of both

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

and Western music. ANIM is a co-educational institute. Per an agreement between Sarmast and the

Afghan Ministry of Education The Afghan Ministry of Education ( fa, وزارت معارف افغانستان , links=no)( ps, د پوهني وزارت افغانستان , links=no) is responsible for policy formulation, the organization and supervision of education in Afgha ...

, the school accommodates both exceptionally talented students and underprivileged children.

History

In 2006, Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast, then a Research Fellow at the Monash School of Music and Asia Institute, of Australia's Monash University, returned to Afghanistan to assess the situation after many years of living in exile. With a strong belief in the power of music and music education, a second trip was made in 2007 to discuss the implementation of the pilot project with the Afghan authorities and more precisely, the rebuilding of music education through establishing a dedicated music school for the most disadvantaged children of Afghanistan. In April 2008, after two years of negotiations with Afghan authorities, Dr. Sarmast went again to Afghanistan to lead and implement the establishment of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). Founded in 2010 by Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) is the first and only school of music in the country. In 2013, ANIM's Afghan Youth Orchestra toured the United States, including performances at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

and the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

. In 2014, a suicide bomb attack at a student concert killed an audience member and the bomber, and injured many more including Sarmast, who was nearly killed and lost some of his hearing. In 2015, the first Afghan female conductor, 17-year-old

Negin Khpalwak Negin Khpalwak (born in 1997 in Kunar, Afghanistan) is a female conductor leading the Zohra - the first all-female orchestra in Afghanistan from Afghanistan National Institute for Music. On February, 2017, the orchestra played at the World Eco ...

, held her first concert with an all-female ensemble. , a third of the 250 students are female and the proportion is growing; in 2019, Sarmast will take its all-female

Zohra Orchestra The Zohra Orchestra, also known as the Afghan Women's Orchestra and Ensemble Zohra, is Afghanistan's first all-female orchestra, named after the music goddess in Persian writings. Founded in 2015, it has been in exile since the 2021 seizure of K ...

on a European tour. In 2018, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and Ahmad Sarmast were awarded the

Polar Music Prize The Polar Music Prize is a Swedish international award founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, best known as the manager of the Swedish band ABBA, with a donation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The award is annually given to one contemporary ...

References

{{authority control Music schools in Afghanistan Schools in Kabul 2010 establishments in Afghanistan Music schools in Asia Educational institutions established in 2010 Education in Kabul