ANIM’s triumphant US return is “a message of resilience, resistance, to the people of Afghanistan and the youth of Afghanistan.”

ANIM’s Triumphant US Return

This summer, the Afghan Youth Orchestra (AYO) returned to the States for the first time since its historic 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 performed traditional Afghan and Western classical music, on both Afghan and Western instruments, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, as the final concert of the inaugural World Orchestra Week (Aug 7), and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (Aug 8). Marking the ensembles’ first U.S. appearances since the Taliban’s return to power and ANIM’s subsequent flight to safety in Portugal, these performances represented potent acts of defiance against the regime that has not only outlawed music but also imposed gender apartheid in Afghanistan. 

ANIM’s US return has been championed across a wide range of media outlets, with appearances on MSNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered, CNN Amanpour, NBC and more. ANIM is featured in The New York Times profile of World Orchestra Week at Carnegie Hall and has received rave reviews for their US performances.

Watch AYO’s appearance on PBS News Hour below.

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About ANIM

After the Taliban’s initial withdrawal in 2010, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast founded the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in Kabul, the first and only school of music in the country. ANIM’s mission is to provide co-educational training in Afghan traditional music and Western classical music for talented Afghan children regardless of their gender, social circumstances, and ethnic background, in addition to offering high quality general education. The performing groups at the heart of the institution’s mission include the ANIM National Symphony Orchestra, the Afghan Women’s Orchestra (AWO) “Zohra,” and the Afghan Youth Orchestra (AYO).

In 2013, ANIM’s first US tour boasted two sold-out concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, attracting a wave of media attention and cross-cultural support. Following this success, ANIM played at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Zohra toured Europe. ANIM was awarded the prestigious Polar Music Prize (2018) and the 2019 Global Pluralism Award, and has continued touring widely across Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and elsewhere.  

ANIM and its students have been based in Portugal since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, which made performing and even listening to music in Afghanistan a crime. The orchestra and school aim not only to preserve and promote Afghanistan’s rich musical heritage, but also to champion the musical and educational rights of the Afghan people, especially those denied such rights by the Taliban’s brutal crackdown on women.