Afghan institute and Metallica Band win music’s ‘Nobel Prize’

Monitoring Desk

KABUL: The Afghanistan National Institute of Music and an American musical band (Metalllica) have won the 2018 Polar Music Prize, it has been reported. The Polar Music Prize is a prestigious prize which is often referred to as music’s Noble Prize.

According to reports, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and the Metallica Band are expected to jointly receive the prize during a ceremony in Stockholm of Sweden.

The ceremony has been scheduled for the 14th of June this year and the two winners will also receive a cash prize of $125,000 in the presence of King Carl XVI Gustaf. The Afghan institute has been recognized as the winner of the prize for the rare coeducational initiative under the leadership of Ahmad Sarmast who founded the institute in 2010.

The institute helped generate Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra which performed last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. According to reports, Polar Music Prize was established in 1989 by the late Stig Anderson, best known as the manager of Swedish pop superstars ABBA, and selects two laureates each year.

The prize´s stated goal is to “break down musical boundaries by bringing together people from all the different worlds of music.”