A few days after Syrian-American pianist and composer Malek Jandali performed his song, "Watani Ana" ("I Am My Homeland"), outside the White House, Syrian security forces burst into his parents’ home in Homs and beat them. “That was the first time ever realizing the ‘soft’ power of music,” Jandali said in New York, the week of his debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.