When William Harvey arrived in Kabul in 2010 to teach at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, he found a school filled with students eager to learn in a country where music had once been banned. The impact that 9/11 left on the Juilliard-trained musician made him realize that he didn’t want to accept a traditional classical music career. Years earlier he had read about a young Afghan who said he had not heard music in so long that he could not imagine what it would sound like. The quote stayed with him and he decided to commit himself to cultural diplomacy. This motivated his decision to move to Afghanistan and eventually teach.
At the school, he worked closely with Dr. Ahmad Sarmast where he conducted the Afghan Youth Orchestra and helped develop a program that blended Afghan and Western musical traditions. Students came from various backgrounds, including many from disadvantaged backgrounds. Some had grown up working on Kabul’s streets before discovering music at the institute.
The work was demanding but rewarding, said Harvey, who often spent long days teaching and rehearsing with students who were eager to perform. One of them, Marjan Fedai, had once sold chewing gum on the street before enrolling at the school. She later performed on Afghan television as a violinist, an opportunity that would have been unimaginable only a few years earlier.
The students’ achievements reached international stages. In 2013, the Afghan Youth Orchestra performed to a sold out audience at Carnegie Hall, a moment Harvey describes as one of the highlights of his career.
“Watching them walk onto that stage was extraordinary,” he said. “These were students who had overcome enormous obstacles just to learn music.”
Today the future of music education in Afghanistan remains uncertain. Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and reinstated a ban on music, the institute’s campus in Kabul has been abandoned and many of its students and teachers now live abroad. For Harvey, the loss is profound. “The damage is incalculable,” he said, reflecting on a program that once gave young musicians a place to learn and perform.