Emma Ayres on her new adventure: teaching music in Afghanistan

In October 2014, it was announced that Emma Ayres would finish up after seven years as the host of Breakfast on ABC Classic FM, moving on to what was then cryptically described as 'new adventures'.

A few months later she packed her bags—and her cello—bound for the Afghan capital, Kabul, where she had a job lined up teaching the instrument at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM).

The school could never have existed under the Taliban—musical instruments were banned—and while musical education is still frowned upon in some circles, ANIM is teaching a different perspective to a new generation.

Ayres says the curriculum includes instruction in how to play traditional Afghan instruments, as well as introducing students to western musical theory and practice. For the staff, she says, there are 'incredible' moments when they see how students embrace these opportunities.

'In grade 5 on the first day of first semester they're invited to say which instrument they would like to learn,' she tells Sunday Extra.

'I was privileged enough to be there at this moment when all these kids stood up and said which instrument they wanted to learn.

'The first person was a young girl called Fatima, who's about 10. Fatima stood up and in English she said: "My name is Fatima and I want to play the cello." My heart soared; my eyes had little blinky bits of tears in them.'

The students start at the age of eight or nine as musical beginners, with about 30 or 40 places available—and hundreds of children apply.

'They're grilled in a way that you can work out whether a child has a good listening capability. They need to sing back things, and tap back rhythms, and are generally assessed for their character. And then 30 or 40 kids are chosen for each year,' Ayres says.

The school's founder, Australian-educated musicologist Ahmad Sarmast, has also tried to make sure the institute reaches out beyond Afghanistan's middle class.

'Some of the kids are orphans and they live in one of the orphanages in Kabul,' Ayres says.

'Some of them are kids who've been previously working on the streets selling chewing gum, selling balloons, that kind of thing, and so they come from extremely poor families. The school has a sponsorship program, and then the school pays the family what the family would have earned from the kid working on the street.'

Listen: Emma Ayres speaks to RN before leaving for Kabul

Unlike many schools in Afghanistan, it's co-educational. 'I think there are fewer than 10 ... co-ed schools in the whole country,' Ayres says.

'[Dr Sarmast] really wanted to make it a co-ed school, he thought that was very important. It has its own fantastic moments ... put teenage boys and girls together, there's always going to be something happening.'

She jokes that the rules are the same as in any Australian school: 'No holding hands in the streets, no snogging behind the bike shed.'

One difference between ANIM and an Australian school is that the students don't take their instruments home from school.

'Here in Australia you see a little kid carrying a trombone or a cello or something and you just think, that's so cute, but in Afghanistan it's definitely not so much of a cute factor, it's more of ... you are really a target,' Ayres says.

'[It's] also because the instruments that we have are few and therefore extremely valuable and conditions in some of the student's houses aren't great.

'You don't want to favour the kids who perhaps come from more middle-class homes. They might be able to take an instrument home very safely, being driven home in a nice car, but for some of them they have to scrabble around on the local buses and I'm sure you can imagine local buses in Afghanistan. There isn't much room for a cello—safely, anyway.'

Read more: ABC Arts profiles ANIM founder Ahmad Sarmast

Ayres has a formed a close bond with one particular student who has to hide the fact that she's going to music school from most of her family.

'She's 16, 17, so that's very much of marrying age, and some people in her family have threatened that they're just going to send her off and marry her off,' Ayres says.

'She is a ferocious student, she studies so hard, she's extremely smart, and she just demanded that she was going to go to music school. Her mother is very supportive ... and the rest of her family just simply don't know.'

About six weeks ago, that student was faced with a dilemma when the school orchestra recorded a song that would be broadcast on national television.

'It was for Mother's Day, and we recorded a song about the mothers and women of Afghanistan,' Ayres says.

'This particular student had to make the call to not play in that concert because she was too worried that her family would see her playing a musical instrument and go, "Hang on a minute, what were you doing there?"

'She came to me on the day that we were actually making the recording, and she was so upset, and she was crying. She said: "Miss Emma, it's not that I'm upset for myself. It doesn't matter if I do this recording. I'm crying for the girls and the women of Afghanistan who can't play music, who are not allowed to play music."'

However, Ayres doesn't think that means her career is necessarily over. 'I think this particular student will do what she wants, because she has such a strong character.'

Sunday Extra is RN's live Sunday morning broadcast, looking to the week ahead and also incorporating Ockham's Razor, Background Briefing, and First Dog on the Moon.