Sense of Place: For this Afghan pianist, music is an act of resistance

The first time Arson Fahim saw a piano is seared into his memory. He was a young boy, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan, when he saw the film The Pianist.

“I saw this movie and I was, like, ‘Wow, how can whatever this thing is save a person’s life? How can it be so powerful?’ ”

That moment sparked his deep love of music, which he pursued after returning to his home country. Fahim eventually received a scholarship to study at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. He remembers leaving for Boston just days before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, banning music entirely.

“I feel like music is taken for granted so much that when you read the headline — ‘Taliban bans music’ or whatever — you don’t actually process it,” he says. “I feel like people hear about it, or read about it, but they don’t realize what that means.”

For the final story from our Sense of Place: Boston series, Fahim shares his story and talks about how he has used music to fight for change, support Afghan musicians and spread awareness.