1. Founder and Director of ANIM:
Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast, (20121107)

3. Biodata:
Ahmad Nasir Sarmast Ahmad Sarmsat was born 1963 in Afghanistan and belongs to a family of musicians that is highly respected in Afghanistan. His late father Ustad Sarmast was a conductor, songwriter and music educator. ·He played the trumpet, mandolin and saxophone as well. And as a composer, he wrote the first symphonic tune of Afghanistan and was the first Afghan to conduct a Symphony Orchestra.
 

Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast received his MA in musicology/ethnomuiscology, from the Moscow State Conservatorium in 1993; and his Bachelor Degree in performance and music education from the same school.

He has been conducting research on music of Afghanistan since 1993, resulting in the landmark book A Survey of the History of Music in Afghanistan.
 

He migrated to Australia to return to Afghanistan in 2006.
 

In 2005 Ahmad Naser Sarmast obtained a PhD in music from Monash University, Australia, becoming the first native of Afghanistan ever to receive that degree. An expert in the music of Afghanistan, Dr. Sarmast is a Research Fellow of the School of Music-Conservatorium and Monash Asia Institute of Monash University, an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, and the author of the book:·A Survey of the History of Music in Afghanistan.
 

In 2006, Dr. Sarmast founded the Revival of Afghan Music program (ROAM), and in 2009, with the assistance of Afghanistan's Ministry of Education, founded the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in Kabul. The ANIM was formally inaugurated on June 20th 2010.
 

Today, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music provides opportunities for many children currently orphaned or without a home in Kabul. Half of its students' families receive a stipend of around $30 each month so that the children can attend the school instead of working.

Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast became the first ever Afghan receive the very prestigious Royal Philharmonic Award in London on 14 May 2013.

An ensemble, known as Zohra, was founded in 2014 as part of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in Kabul. Zohra is the name of a music goddess in Persian literature.Mrs. Negin Khpolwak, the orchestra’s first woman conductor, says Afghanistan has made significant advances in terms of promoting women’s rights in the past 17 years. Girls and boys in the orchestra come from different Afghan ethnic groups and they help each other when needed.

The sixth winter music academy of the National Music Institute of Afghanistan launched on Jan 11, 2016 and within eight months, students will host concerts. Soon a group of 50 girls will be introducing Afghan music to the world. Students from the academy will being trained professionally in eastern and western music genres in order to participate in international music festivals.(20160112)
 

Sarmast speaks Pashtu, Russian and English.

More Background:
Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) is a group that fled their homeland after the Taliban seized power and banned music and education for young women and girls. The orchestra first came to Europe in 2021, where they were offered a home in Portugal. Yet out of an original 150 members, just 58 have remained. Many others have quit and moved elsewhere in Europe, including in Germany.