Young Afghan musicians are rebuilding their art together, in Portugal

Lisbon: Three years ago, nearly 300 young Afghan musicians, their teachers, and staff from their music school fled Afghanistan in fear for their lives after their country fell again to the Taliban. NPR followed them on their journey from Kabul to a new life.

Since then, they’ve been permanently rebuilding their community as refugees in northern Portugal. NPR visited them as they began to put down roots and recently caught up with them again, just before they tour the U.S. as the Afghan Youth Orchestra.

The Afghanistan National Institute of Music represented an exciting vision of Afghanistan. It brought together kids from all over the country, boys and girls alike, from vastly different socioeconomic circumstances, ethnicities, and language groups, says Ahmad Sarmast, the school’s director. He founded the school in 2010.

“I think one thing that connects us is not just our nationality or language or religion, but playing music,” Sarmast observes. “Making music together also plays a significant role in keeping our identity as a community.”

That shared love of music is what binds them together.

“The group is very diverse, like Afghanistan itself,” he says. “The community of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music is a mosaic, a smaller mosaic of the beautiful, diverse Afghanistan.”

The school quickly gained international prominence; its musicians even toured the U.S. in 2013, including a performance at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. It seemed like a new era was dawning.

But even before the Taliban seized power again in 2021, everyone at the school knew that they were still at serious risk. The danger became very real: A suicide bomber attacked one of their concerts and severely injured Sarmast, who was sitting just a few seats from the attacker.

“Our school was in the high hit list of the Taliban. They attacked one of our performances in 2014, where two people were killed, and I was injured,” he says.

Sarmast was nearly killed in that attack – with 11 pieces of shrapnel lodged in his skull – and his hearing was severely damaged. Over the next few years, there were several more planned attacks on the school and Sarmast himself, all of which were foiled.

Once the Taliban reseized control of Afghanistan in 2021, however, he felt there was no other choice. Once again, schooling for girls past the sixth grade has been banned. So has playing and listening to music — and the Taliban have seized and burned instruments.

“We knew when the Taliban was going to come [back],” Sarmast says, “our school will be the first target, and it will be the beginning of another cultural genocide.”

So in the fall of 2021, with the assistance of the governments of Qatar and Portugal, students, faculty, staff, and some family members – were airlifted out of Kabul and resettled together as a community. They were going to recreate the musical heart of Afghanistan — in northern Portugal, near Braga.

I visited them in Portugal in the fall of 2022, not long after they had been moved from temporary quarters in Lisbon to Braga, a quieter area not far from the border with Spain.

They were still settling in, enrolling in local schools and getting used to the food. I ate lunch with some of the teenage students at a local Catholic charitable organization, where most of them politely pushed plainly cooked fish and overboiled Brussels sprouts around their plates. It was a world away from the spiced meats and pilafs of their homeland.

But the taste of home came when they pulled out their instruments — such as the sitar, santoor, rubab and harmonium — and began rehearsing traditional Afghan music.

They love playing and are fulfilling their lifetime dreams of being musicians. But also, they understand their responsibilities, says 15-year-old Zohra Ahmadi, who plays trumpet.

“We are the voice of a country that has no music,” she says. “It’s a bit sad to think about it, that we are the only ones playing.”

Sarmast, the school’s director, says the school’s mission has expanded and become even more urgent. He says his students must be the ones to preserve their country’s music from more than 4,000 miles away. He says it’s not just a mission: It’s a duty to the country they had to flee.

“Now, we are responsible for safeguarding Afghan music,” Sarmast says firmly. “Advocating for the music rights and cultural rights of the Afghan people, and for freedom of expression, through music in all its forms and freedom. And also actively advocating for stopping gender apartheid in Afghanistan.”

While they are learning so much material that celebrates rich, ancient and deep musical traditions from across Afghanistan, they are also solidly becoming part of a new country.

17-year-old Elham Asefi plays guitar. He says the Portuguese locals have been very welcoming and friendly, and are patient in helping them master yet another language. “The Portugal people are very kind,” he says fondly. “Like, they help us.”

And at long last, many of the students are looking forward to being reunited with family members in Portugal – hopefully very soon, Sarmast says.

“We are all waiting for the arrival of the families from Afghanistan to Portugal,” he notes. “We have the approval of the government of Portugal – 368 people to reunite with their families.”

In the meantime, these young Afghan musicians are finally back to touring internationally, bringing their music and message to new audiences. Recent appearances have included performances across the U.K. and at the 2023 United Nations Human Rights Conference in Switzerland.

They will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Wednesday evening and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Both trumpeter Zohra Ahmadi and guitarist Elham Asefi are thrilled to be visiting the U.S. — particularly to perform at Carnegie.

“Really excited!” Ahmadi exclaims, giggling.

“We’re really excited,” Asefi chimes in. “It’s a big stage, the stage we play at Carnegie Hall. Every musician has a dream to play there.”

They say that no matter what, they will continue to be a voice for Afghanistan across the world – a voice that refuses to be silenced.