NEW DELHI: Within the shattered stays of his 15-year-old music faculty, Iranian musician Hamidreza Afarideh sat on a debris-laden flooring, drew his bow and performed with a kamancheh, what he referred to as “the final sound” of a life’s work diminished to mud.Weeks after a strike destroyed Honiak Music Academy, Afarideh walked again into the hazardous ruins on April 7, 2026, and recorded a haunting video that rapidly traveled far past Tehran, capturing his moments of deep grief after an airstrike on March 23 left the academy razed and severely broken.
As soon as a classroom, Honiak Music Academy is now a area of rubble.
“At the moment was the final day to say goodbye to my faculty. I wished the final sound that continues to be on this place to be the sound of music…not explosions and missiles,” Afarideh wrote the identical day, in a now viral put up. Inside days, his photographs and clips had racked up thousands and thousands of views throughout Instagram,“
Honiak Music Academy earlier than the strike.
chatting with TOI from Tehran, Afarideh recalled the day of the assault. “I felt that an important a part of our recollections, and sounds that would have continued in that area—sounds that many artists may hear, see, and stay with for years—had been instantly destroyed by a missile and a drone.” The academy, constructed over a decade and a half by Afarideh and his spouse, Sheida Ebadatoust, was what he calls “their shared life undertaking.”“We labored with very restricted sources, relying solely on our goals and dedication to construct this academy. Dropping it instantly is extraordinarily exhausting. All our exhausting work, efforts, steady actions to convey individuals nearer to music and devices was misplaced in a single night time. It is vitally troublesome to simply accept. Every thing we constructed over so a few years… This loss will take years to course of.”
As soon as a classroom, Honiak Music Academy is now a area of rubble.
Regardless of the chance of collapse, he returned to the broken constructing. “I knew it was very harmful… however I felt that if I did not report this sound, it might keep in my coronary heart perpetually. I may not keep (alive) afterward… I felt I needed to go there and make this the final picture and the final sound remaining from the secure area we had created.”For years, the academy buzzed with the laughter of youngsters, heat chatters of oldsters, and the layered sounds of Persian classical music. For the reason that assault, says the instructor, “That sound disappeared.” For Afarideh, the viral second has introduced world consideration—but additionally underlined, he says, “the truth of warfare and destruction” confronted by his 250 college students—starting from toddlers to the aged—and 22 academics. His video has turn into a worldwide plea for recognition of the price of warfare not simply in our bodies and infrastructure, however in artwork, reminiscence, and the delicate ecosystems of creativity that take a long time to construct and minutes to erase.Formed over a decade, he calls the place a “second residence” the place college students got here not simply to study music however to really feel seen and held—for them, too, the loss has been private. “College students, who had been to return sometime, are actually scattered, shell‑shocked, and struggling to course of what occurred. One little one crossed the constructing along with his mom and did not converse for hours afterward. All college students are going by way of related emotions.“But even in devastation, Afarideh insists on the common energy of artwork. “Music… is an emblem of freedom,” he stated. “In instances of warfare, it may well heal—even when solely a bit of—the ache of those that have misplaced the whole lot.”