“Playing for Freedom: The Journey of a Young Afghan Violist,” by Zarifa Adiba, Part 1 of 2

Zarifa Adiba is from Kabul, Afghanistan, and graduated from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in 2017. She is a talented lead violist and co-conductor of Zohra, Afghanistan’s pioneering all-female orchestra. Her first book, “Playing for Freedom: The Journey of a Young Afghan Violist,” speaks up on behalf of all the girls in Afghanistan. “Just one answer popped up in my mind, that was: It is not just my story that I’m writing in this book. I had friends who got married who wanted to study. I had friends who had lost their lives in a bomb blast, who wanted to do something for their country. So, it was not just my story, who was thriving for education, who wanted to be counted as an equal human being.” “I think that music was within me. That’s the way that I want to deliver my words to the world.”

Dr. Ahmad Sarmast’s passion for preserving and promoting the rich musical heritage of Afghanistan led him to establish the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in 2010. “Afghanistan National Institute of Music was a life-changing place for me, my second home. It was one of the most beautiful and the safest place in Kabul that I could be in. That is the normal life that every human being should have. But in Afghanistan, we had it just inside that little school. I found out what peace really means. These very beautiful terms and words that are so normal in the West. But I understood the meaning of those words inside my school.”

This rendition was performed in celebration of International Day of the Girl Child in 2016 by the Afghan Youth Orchestra, the Choir of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and the Mahrefat High School Choir. “I go forth with knowledge. The walls fall and cannot stop me. This bird will always sing, I stand against repression. I am a girl. I am a girl, a tree in the sun. I am a messenger from the land of hope. I can blaze a trail over thorns and stones. I turn stones into stars. I am a girl.”