When the curtain fell on the Afghan Youth Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on Thursday night, there was a standing ovation.
“It was incredibly moving,” said Karen Cleaver, 61, from St Albans, who volunteers with local refugees and had taken four Afghans to the concert with her. “It was a privilege to be there.”
The audience wasn’t just applauding the music, which ranged from a Brahms Hungarian dance to Afghan ghazals, but also the arduous journey taken by the 47 young musicians, more than half of them female, who were forced to flee their country and families after the Taliban seized power and outlawed music and girls’ education and banned women from working.
The young musicians’ four-city Breaking the Silence tour started at the Southbank Centre in London and will end on Tuesday in Birmingham
CHRISTOPHER L PROCTOR FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
The orchestra’s four-city UK tour, Breaking the Silence,
