After Assad’s fall, Syria’s musicians rebuild from the rubble

In the Dam­as­cus Insti­tute of Music’s halls, the sounds of instru­ments blend into a tri­umphant cacoph­o­ny. With soar­ing brass, strings, wind instru­ments and per­cus­sion com­ing togeth­er as one, there’s a sym­phon­ic har­mo­ny rarely heard over the past half century.

Tak­ing place in its rehearsal rooms, stu­dents prac­tice on tra­di­tion­al Mid­dle East­ern and West­ern clas­si­cal instru­ments under the watch­ful eyes of their teach­ers. In the past, the institute’s most tal­ent­ed grad­u­ates would leave for Lebanon, the Gulf states, or Europe, where they could pur­sue careers with­out fear of censorship.

Less than two months before my vis­it to the insti­tute, more than 50 years of dic­ta­tor­ship and 14 years of war came to an end. There is cur­rent­ly an air of enthu­si­asm in Syr­ia, but the coun­try is also at a cross­roads, after Bashar al-Assad and his fam­i­ly were pushed out of pow­er in less than a week. Now, artists hope for a new era, where free­dom and music are no longer in conflict.

Muhammed Azza­wi, a 59-year-old music pro­fes­sor, knows all too well what it was like to be an artist under the Assad régime. ​“To be a suc­cess­ful musi­cian in Syr­ia, you had to be a bad musi­cian,” he says, sit­ting in the institute’s court­yard. After years of ded­i­cat­ed study of the French horn, Azza­wi joined the Syr­i­an Nation­al Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. But tal­ent didn’t mat­ter if you weren’t loy­al to the régime.

Through­out the years, Azza­wi has seen how loy­al­ty to the régime has often trumped tal­ent. To secure a posi­tion in the Syr­i­an Nation­al Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra – to advance in any artis­tic insti­tu­tion – musi­cians often need­ed the right polit­i­cal con­nec­tions or a demon­strat­ed alle­giance to Assad. ​“You had to be under their wing, oth­er­wise they wouldn’t let you do any­thing,” says Azzawi. 

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And those who showed dis­sent, or even had links to oth­ers who did, would often be cast aside. Fol­low­ing the 2011 rev­o­lu­tion in the wake of the Arab Spring, Fad­wa Souleimane – a famous actress, Azzawi’s ex-wife and moth­er of their child Arwan – joined the oppo­si­tion. Being from an Alaw­ite back­ground, an eth­nore­li­gious minor­i­ty in Syr­ia, she was one of the few pub­lic fig­ures able to unite Syr­i­ans beyond sec­tar­i­an and gen­der divides, and ulti­mate­ly became a key face in the revolution.

The régime did not for­give Fadwa’s activism. Threats forced her to flee to Paris with her sec­ond hus­band, where she lived in exile until she passed away in 2017. Azza­wi was expelled from the orches­tra and was only called upon on rare occa­sions. He and his son nev­er saw Fad­wa again, and he ded­i­cat­ed a 2020 record­ing, ​‘End­less Love Vol 2 .. Way To Eter­ni­ty’, to her.

In an attempt to crush the upris­ing, a régime of repres­sion quick­ly took form, with the Syr­i­an Net­work for Human Rights (SNHR) doc­u­ment­ing the killings of over 200,000 civil­ians at the hands of the Assad régime’s forces, while thou­sands of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were tak­en and mil­lions more dis­placed. Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Syr­i­an Nation­al Orches­tra for Ara­bic Music (a sep­a­rate group to the Syr­i­an Nation­al Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra) were forced to leave the coun­try, recon­ven­ing in 2016 for a per­for­mance sup­port­ed by Goril­laz and Blur’s Damon Albarn.

Pro­test­ers hoped to fol­low the exam­ple of Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya, where pop­u­lar move­ments had man­aged to top­ple dic­ta­tors. But in Syr­ia, they turned into a civ­il war. ​“Assad sep­a­rat­ed every­one – fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties, entire indus­tries,” says Azza­wi. ​“But you can’t have good music with­out freedom.”

Since the régime’s col­lapse on Decem­ber 8, many musi­cians have expressed their desire to rebuild Syria’s music indus­try, and con­vince young artists – who have been leav­ing the coun­try in large num­bers – to stay and con­tribute to the country’s cul­tur­al revival. For the first time in decades, they hope Syr­ia can have not only music, but also free­dom of expres­sion and creativity.

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist mil­i­tary group and for­mer Al-Qae­da affil­i­ate who fought along­side sev­er­al oth­er rebel groups, took con­trol of Syr­ia after a week-long mil­i­tary incur­sion, with Bashar and his fam­i­ly flee­ing to Moscow. HTS became the country’s admin­is­tra­tor overnight. The régime’s rapid col­lapse shocked both Syr­i­ans and the rest of the world.

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Once they had gained pow­er, many feared that a rigid vision would reshape dai­ly life. Under Assad, the state was offi­cial­ly sec­u­lar, but that sec­u­lar­ism was selec­tive­ly enforced. While the régime cracked down on overt reli­gious expres­sion that veered too far from its nar­ra­tive, it often por­trayed the upris­ing as a bat­tle against Islamist rad­i­cals, pri­mar­i­ly the so-called Islam­ic State. As a result, devout Sun­ni Mus­lims who opposed the régime were often labeled as extrem­ists or ISIS sym­pa­this­ers, jus­ti­fy­ing repres­sion under the guise of counterterrorism.

The anx­i­ety that HTS might ban music or dis­band the insti­tute for stu­dents like Salam Bouham­dan, a 23-year-old vio­lin­ist, was real. Her first reac­tion was joy, but fear of artis­tic restric­tions quick­ly set in. ​“We musi­cians were wor­ried that they would shut down the opera, artis­tic activ­i­ties, or music in gen­er­al,” Bouham­dan tells me.

Yet so far, the rumoured clo­sure of the Opera House has turned out to be false, and many fears about fun­da­men­tal­ist and repres­sive mea­sures have not mate­ri­alised, though the new gov­ern­ment did mod­i­fy school cur­ric­u­la and removed cer­tain texts deemed inappropriate.

Azza­wi met with the new Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Mohammed Yasin Saleh. He and oth­er pro­fes­sors and indus­try lead­ers want to active­ly par­tic­i­pate in rebuild­ing a fair, inclu­sive, and cor­rup­tion-free music scene. ​“We musi­cians want to take con­trol of how music is made in Syr­ia,” explains Azza­wi. ​“Now that we are free, we can set the rules our­selves, we don’t need a gov­ern­ment to dic­tate our direc­tion anymore.”

Beyond crack­downs and repres­sion on pro­tes­tors, Assad’s régime also suf­fo­cat­ed the cre­ative scene. Major insti­tu­tions such as uni­ver­si­ties and con­ser­va­toires had out­dat­ed mind­sets, accord­ing to stu­dents at the Insti­tute, which was reflect­ed in the art they pro­duced. Stu­dents and musi­cians say that mov­ing for­wards, they need a free space for cre­ativ­i­ty and an envi­ron­ment that encour­ages col­lab­o­ra­tion, mak­ing it eas­i­er for artists, ideas, and music to flow both with­in and beyond their community.

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In the past, sim­ply men­tion­ing the word ​“dol­lar” could land you in prison, and Syr­i­an stu­dents claim that cul­tur­al exchanges and schol­ar­ships were rare or unavail­able to them, as host coun­tries feared they would apply for asy­lum once in Europe. Now that Assad is gone, musi­cians are not just return­ing to their instru­ments, they’re reclaim­ing music itself as a space for polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al renew­al. I attend­ed the orchestra’s first per­for­mance since the régime fell, and the con­cert hall was near­ly full. 

Behind the musi­cians, images and mes­sages hon­or­ing vic­tims of the dic­ta­tor­ship were pro­ject­ed onstage, turn­ing the per­for­mance into a trib­ute and an act of defi­ance, some­thing impos­si­ble in the past. Across the cap­i­tal, music has spilled into the streets, with young peo­ple singing and per­form­ing in the Bab al-Shar­qi neigh­bour­hood of Dam­as­cus. Singers are open­ly per­form­ing songs crit­i­cal of the régime, some­thing that would have been unthink­able just months before I was in the city. 

Venue own­ers, mean­while, are encour­ag­ing young artists to step for­ward, offer­ing space for them to per­form and exper­i­ment. A rein­ven­tion of Syria’s musi­cal iden­ti­ty, shaped by free­dom, mem­o­ry and protest, has been sprout­ing in the country. 

One sym­bol of Dam­as­cus’ cul­tur­al rebirth is the Al-Raw­da Café, a place where peo­ple came togeth­er before the war – musi­cians, writ­ers, intel­lec­tu­als, and politi­cians. For decades, polit­i­cal par­ties were formed and heat­ed debates took place over tea and cof­fee. But with the war’s com­mence­ment, the café was infil­trat­ed by infor­mants from the mukhabarat – Syria’s secu­ri­ty ser­vices – who eaves­dropped on con­ver­sa­tions and report­ed any crit­i­cism of the régime. Reg­u­lars were impris­oned for refus­ing to co-oper­ate or for sup­port­ing the opposition.

Today, Al-Raw­da is com­ing back to life. Peo­ple are return­ing after years of exile or forced silence, and their gath­er­ings are filled with cheers, music, and heat­ed debates. For the first time in 14 years, for­eign news­pa­pers are spread out on the tables, and peo­ple in the café are free to talk. Polit­i­cal con­fer­ences and debates are even being held again.

Anoth­er pri­or­i­ty for vet­er­an artists is stop­ping the tal­ent exo­dus, which has poten­tial to accel­er­ate as the coun­try opens up. Abdul­lah Chhadeh, one of Syria’s most renowned inter­na­tion­al musi­cians, spent over a decade in Lon­don, where he arrived on a schol­ar­ship after grad­u­at­ing from the Dam­as­cus Insti­tute of Music.

One of the most acclaimed con­tem­po­rary play­ers of the qanun, a tra­di­tion­al string instru­ment, Chhadeh returned to Syr­ia in 2011. 10 years lat­er, he has now opened a con­cert hall in his own home, giv­ing young artists a stage for the first time. ​“The main prob­lem for musi­cians is hav­ing a job in Syr­ia and earn­ing enough mon­ey,” Chhadeh explains to me.

He man­aged to buy back his par­ents’ Dam­a­scene house, which they had sold, and trans­formed it into an artis­tic haven where young cre­ators can dream and per­form at home, with­out hav­ing to leave the coun­try. It is locat­ed in a Chris­t­ian neigh­bour­hood and fea­tures an inte­ri­or court­yard with rows of tables and chairs, ancient stone arch­es, mosa­ic floors, and con­tem­po­rary art on the walls behind the stage.

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“If they work as hard as they do in Europe, they will suc­ceed here too,” says Chhadeh. After years spent in Europe and the Unit­ed States, he always felt some­thing was miss­ing. Now, he has start­ed his own dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture to play an active role in shap­ing Syria’s new arts and music scene.

It makes for a tense time with­in the country’s tra­di­tion­al music insti­tu­tions. Many of the old guard, who were appoint­ed to their posi­tions dur­ing Assad’s reign remain in their posts, with oth­ers refus­ing to join them. Azza­wi claims that he will not return to the orches­tra until he believes that it is inclu­sive and com­mu­ni­ty dri­ven, in a sim­i­lar state to how it was before 2011.

“You can’t remove cor­rup­tion and dic­ta­tor­ship from people’s minds in a few days or weeks, it will take time to return to nor­mal,” Azza­wi says. ​“But we’re ready to do it togeth­er. That’s why I didn’t flee, I want­ed to see how it ends.

Andrei Popovi­ciu is an inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist. Fol­low him on X.

Alexan­dra Cor­code is a pho­to­jour­nal­ist. Fol­low her on Insta­gram.

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