Afghanistan

While arranging travel for the Human Rights Conference at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and two conferences for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Classical Movements has worked in Kabul and for Afghan Nationals, but at this time, we are not organizing tours to Afghanistan. With the existence of the Afghan Women’s Orchestra, it is clear that Western classical music is beginning to draw a small, albeit passionate following in the country.

The company started traveling to the Middle East in 1994, first with its brochure program under Blue Heart Tours. In 2016, Classical Movements arranged for the Yale Concert Band to play in Athens for Afghan and Syrian refugees. Throughout its history, it has developed working relations with human rights activists all over the world and has arranged concert tours for Middle Eastern musicians: in 2003, it arranged the historical tour of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra to the United States. The company has arranged tours to tours to Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, UAE, Qatar, Palestine, Turkey and Morocco.

Press

“Khubat Abbas Abdul Razaq, a cellist and one of the orchestra’s four women members, said: ‘I just want to say this is an honor to come to Washington and to play here.’ Samir Yosif, a double-bass player, said: ‘We want to let the American people know that we have a culture, that we have something to give them. It’s a great honor to be here and we thank the people who have helped us here to play.’” The lndependent | December 12, 2003