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William Harvey teaches the violin and the viola at Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). As the founding co-conductor of ANIM’s premier ensemble, the Afghan Youth Orchestra, he has conducted the orchestra six times for President Hamid Karzai; on the season finale of Afghan Star; and in highly acclaimed performances of his Four Seasons of Afghanistan (based on the Vivaldi) and his arrangement of Ravel’s Bolero. He will conduct the orchestra on its first international tour, which will take place in February 2013 when they perform in the Kennedy Center in Washington and Carnegie Hall in New York City. He has compiled, edited, and arranged accompaniments for the Anthology of Afghan Songs for Violin and the Anthology of Afghan Songs for Viola.
For more information about ANIM, please visit http://www.afghanistannationalinstituteofmusic.org

In this interview, Harvey talks about the philosophy behind ANIM, and how he ended up becoming the first ex-patriot teacher there. He shares his thoughts about the education system in Afghanistan and the computer classrooms that Film Annex is building in Afghan schools, amongst other topics.

More about William Harvey: Born in the United States with degrees from The Juilliard School and Indiana University, he has performed solo with orchestras in Carnegie Hall (in a performance reviewed by the New York Times), Alice Tully Hall, Mexico, and the Philippines. He has served as concertmaster of the Spokane Symphony and the Juilliard Orchestra and faculty at the Indiana University String Academy and Las Vegas Music Festival. In 2005, William founded and still directs Cultures in Harmony, a non-profit that has conducted over 20 projects in over a dozen countries to promote cultural understanding through music. In Pakistan, he led a concert tour of seven schools, spoke about Pakistani-American friendship on national TV, lectured at Aga Khan University, and performed with rock band Irtaash and rapper Adil Omar. Cultures in Harmony has created compositions with AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe, underprivileged girls in Egypt, and the Yoro tribe in Papua New Guinea. Workshops for young classical musicians have benefited thousands of students throughout Africa and Asia. William studied violin with Mimi Zweig and Ronald Copes. His compositions have received over a hundred performances, and he has conducted orchestras in the Philippines, Qatar, Mexico, and the United States.

Visit the Afghan Development Initiative and the Afghan Development Web TV for more information.