MEMETERIA by Thomas May

From press release: “Afghan Youth Orchestra (AYO) has returned to the USA for the first time since its U.S. debut in 2013. The premier ensemble of the displaced Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), the orchestra comprises 46 male and female musicians aged between 14 and 22, whose diverse backgrounds testify to the strength and resilience of the Afghan people. Together with ANIM’s celebrated all-female Zohra Orchestra and conductor Tiago Moreira da Silva, AYO will perform traditional Afghan and Western classical music, on both Afghan and Western instruments, in a pair of concerts at  Carnegie Hall (the final concert of the inaugural World Orchestra Week on Aug 7) and the Kennedy Center (Aug 8).

Marking the ensembles’ first U.S. appearances since the Taliban’s return to power and ANIM’s subsequent flight to safety, these performances represent potent acts of defiance against the regime that has not only outlawed music but also imposed gender apartheid in Afghanistan.

AYO returns to New York and D.C. under the baton of young Portuguese conductor Tiago Moriera da Silva. Performed on a combination of Western orchestral instruments and traditional Afghan instruments, including the rubab, sitar, tambur, and tabla, their program juxtaposes ancient ragas and folksongs with the conductor’s original arrangements of music by Brahms, Kodály, and Afghan composers Amir Jan Saboori, Ustad Din Mohammad Zakhail, and Ustad Nainawaz, the father of Afghan pop.

AYO will give the U.S. premiere of Saudade do Afeganistão, a multi-movement work by composer and former faculty member William Harvey that traces ANIM’s turbulent recent history, and ANIM’s mould-breaking Zohra Orchestra will interpret songs celebrating freedom and women’s rights. At a time when women in Afghanistan are prohibited from working, attending school, or leaving their homes unaccompanied, Zohra’s performance sends a powerful message of resistance, embodying the unwavering spirit of Afghan women.
 
At Carnegie Hall, where da Silva makes his house debut, AYO’s performance represents the final concert of World Orchestra Week (WOW!), a new festival that brings together seven youth orchestras from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States for a week of cultural exchange and music-making with internationally renowned artists in New York. AYO will be joined on Carnegie Hall’s main stage by members of the European Union Youth Orchestra, and the program will be expanded to include accounts of traditional Sufi songs by ANIM’s Qawwali vocal ensemble.”

Filed under: Carnegie Hall, music news