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A British orchestra will this week play, for the first time, a programme of Afghan music, featuring exiled Afghan musicians on traditional instrumentsThe musicians of Afghanistan have again been silenced by the Taliban. Other than specific religious and patriotic forms and contexts, the group believe that listening to or making music is morally corrupting. If there is anything to the Taliban’s credit here, it is that they recognise music’s potential to shape our subjective experiences, transmit ideas and build and strengthen communities. Since the group’s return to power in August last year, musicians have been murdered and brutalised, wedding parties have been raided, and centres for music learning have been closed.I first visited the country in July 2018 to meet the members of the Afghan Women’s Orchestra at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, the specialist school set up in 2010 by Ahmad Sarmast and which – before its forced closure last July – had 350 students. For three years I gave weekly online lessons to the young conductors, men and women, at the school. These lessons had their challenges, not least the regular power cuts and slow internet speeds in Kabul, but they gave me a tantalising insight into the orchestras, repertoire and rehearsal practices of the young ensembles at the school, opened my ears to the unique sounds and forms of Afghanistan’s orchestral music. Above all, I was reminded yet again that orchestras can and do change lives. Continue reading...