Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra has been trying to fight extremism with music. Thirty young Afghan musicians performed at the British Museum on Friday to celebrate women’s history month. According to the British Museum’s website, the event was held in collaboration with the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the UK, Oxford College of Music and Orchestra of St John’s, Oxford. The group, Zohra, travelled to London to share with the world the tunes of Afghanistan and highlight achievements of the Afghan women. Their music is a mixture of traditional Afghan music and western classical. The conductor of the orchestra is 22-year-old Negin Khpalwak, who has performed in Dubai and played in the US, India, Germany and Switzerland. They have performed at many international platforms and their first show was at Davos in 2017 in front of 2,000 world leaders. Zohra is named after the Persian goddess of music. Published in Daily Times, March 18th 2019.