BERLIN: A year ago, 28-year-old pianist Aeham Al-Ahmad was performing in the ruins of Damascus.
But after Daesh terrorists torched his beloved piano, he fled to Germany where he now sings to audiences of the troubles in his home country.
“The piano, this is my life. This is in my heart,” the young musician, dressed in jeans and a keffiyeh scarf, tells AFP.
On a recent day in Berlin, Ahmad throws off his rucksack and rushes to the grand piano in the concert hall where he’ll be performing just a few hours later.
He plays a few arpeggios on the gleaming instrument.
In his concerts, he sings in Arabic about water, the mountains near the Syrian capital and the “stolen dreams” of its people.
In Damascus, his piano “was the thing I cherished the most.”
He rolled it out into the streets of the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk, amid the ruins of the city. Children used to stand in a circle around him, singing together about hope in face of war, the famine and the bombs.
But last year on April 17, his birthday, Daesh militants reduced the instrument to ashes.
“When the minions of Daesh burned my piano, I decided to leave,” he said, speaking of his grueling odyssey in crowded boats before he finally reached Europe’s shores.
The voyage also meant he had to leave his wife and two sons behind in Syria.
He reached Germany in September 2015 along with tens of thousands of other Syrians refugees.
Since then, he has been living in a refugee home with his uncle in the western town of Wiesbaden near Frankfurt.
“It’s not perfect, but we have a room and people give us food and money,” he smiles.
He speaks English with a strong Arab accent, but when he talks about Germany, he uses an approximation of the German word, Deutschland.
“I like doing something for Doutchland because it (has done) a lot for me,” he says.
“Lots of people associate Syria with Daesh terrorists. But they see a Syrian on the podium who reveres Beethoven and who can play Mozart,” he said.
But after Daesh terrorists torched his beloved piano, he fled to Germany where he now sings to audiences of the troubles in his home country.
“The piano, this is my life. This is in my heart,” the young musician, dressed in jeans and a keffiyeh scarf, tells AFP.
On a recent day in Berlin, Ahmad throws off his rucksack and rushes to the grand piano in the concert hall where he’ll be performing just a few hours later.
He plays a few arpeggios on the gleaming instrument.
In his concerts, he sings in Arabic about water, the mountains near the Syrian capital and the “stolen dreams” of its people.
In Damascus, his piano “was the thing I cherished the most.”
He rolled it out into the streets of the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk, amid the ruins of the city. Children used to stand in a circle around him, singing together about hope in face of war, the famine and the bombs.
But last year on April 17, his birthday, Daesh militants reduced the instrument to ashes.
“When the minions of Daesh burned my piano, I decided to leave,” he said, speaking of his grueling odyssey in crowded boats before he finally reached Europe’s shores.
The voyage also meant he had to leave his wife and two sons behind in Syria.
He reached Germany in September 2015 along with tens of thousands of other Syrians refugees.
Since then, he has been living in a refugee home with his uncle in the western town of Wiesbaden near Frankfurt.
“It’s not perfect, but we have a room and people give us food and money,” he smiles.
He speaks English with a strong Arab accent, but when he talks about Germany, he uses an approximation of the German word, Deutschland.
“I like doing something for Doutchland because it (has done) a lot for me,” he says.
“Lots of people associate Syria with Daesh terrorists. But they see a Syrian on the podium who reveres Beethoven and who can play Mozart,” he said.
