The lulling sound of the sarod is loved by many, but the fretless instrument is difficult to master. That Negin Khpolwak’s fingers are tough enough to press the strings is, in itself, a musical feat. But the sound of her sarod is all the more powerful because Khpolwak is an orphan, only 16, born the same year that the Taliban took control of her native Kabul, the same year it pummeled pianos with grenades and chopped off the hands of men who dared to strum sitars.
Eleven years after the fall of the Taliban, Khpolwak now performs in the Afghan Youth Orchestra, a celebrated ensemble of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, where she studies.
Video
The Afghanistan National Institute of Music began a two week U.S. tour beginning at the State Department on Feb. 4, 2013. John Kerry welcomed the Afghan students on his first official day as Secretary of State.
(Musadeq Sadeq/AP) - An Afghan youth, Sayed Menhaj Sadat, practices playing the cello in a class at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“Normally, Afghan girls are not picking traditional instruments,” Khpolwak said in a phone interview through an interpreter. “I am one of the first. It’s an honor to play with the orchestra and to act as an ambassador for Afghan music and culture.”
Khpolwak seems aware of the symbolism: She is a girl attending school in a country where the Taliban silenced both women and music. On Sunday, she and 47 other young Afghans will board a flight bound for Washington to showcase their talents and triumphs when the Afghan Youth Orchestra begins a two-week tour of the United States. The tour will include a free concert at the Kennedy Center on Thursday, master classes at the New England Conservatory in Boston and a performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
The students, ages 10 to 21, have not practiced their entire lives to get to Carnegie Hall, but the school wasn’t built for Langs, Mas and Perlmans. Ahmad Sarmast, an Afghan music professor educated in Russia and Australia, founded the school in 2010 to bring music back to the country after it was banned in the name of the Taliban’s extreme interpretation of Islam.
“Music can play a role in bringing about social changes and breaking taboos,” Sarmast said. “That’s why many of the activities are designed not only for education but also to contribute to establishing a civil society in Afghanistan.”
Half of the school’s 141 students are orphans or former street hawkers. Children from every ethnic group and social class attend the school, where tuition is free, and 35 girls are enrolled. For the poorest students, the school is the jolt out of poverty; some families are given monthly stipends for their children’s lost wages. And orphans audition to learn music and other subjects alongside promising students from middle-class backgrounds. Milad Yousufi, 18, won third place at an international piano competition in Frankfurt, Germany, last year and will audition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston next week.
The Afghan Youth Orchestra is more than a development project. For Sarmast and the school’s many international donors, it serves as a powerful symbol of successful reconstruction in Afghanistan. And by performing in Washington and New York, the seats of U.S. political and financial power, the orchestra hopes to showcase what a decade of investment has achieved.
This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post contributors aren’t staff, but may write articles or columns. In some cases, contributors are sources or experts quoted in a story.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
To pause and restart automatic updates, click "Live" or "Paused". If paused, you'll be notified of the number of additional comments that have come in.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
Loading...
Comments