The italian newspaper La Repubblica went meeting Negin Khpolwak in the school of Davos where she practices. The ensemble is leaving for the European tour. Strict security checks: three years ago, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the audience. But they have not stopped
Negin gave up wearing the headscarf. The black long hair falls soft on her shoulders. She is forced to cover only when she returns to her native village.
Since islamists threatened to kill her she has to hide, she must try to stay unseen. “For my people I am a disgrace. Because I go to school. Because I do music.”
Negin Khpolwak is the first woman orchestra conductor of her country. She is just twenty years and has ten lives behind.
Nothing could stop Negin Khpalwalk. Neither her relatives who repeated her that a girl can not play, nor the Taliban regime which had banned any form of art from Afghanistan.
Thanks to the support of her father, the only family member who has never hampered her, Negin has begun to take her first steps in music when she was just a child.
Born in Konar province, on the border with Pakistan, she moved to an orphanage in Kabul to begin studying. Since few months she leads the “Zohra Orchestra”, made up of 35 female elements, combining Afghan influences to western ones.
”There are many security issues – said the young girl to the agency “Reuters” – when we walk down the street with our instruments, we are not safe and we can move only by car. But I will never accept a defeat.”
“I will continue to play. Because when people sees me and says, ‘She is Negin Khapalwak’, it fills me with energy.”
