OF TABLAS AND VIOLINS
Linda Kotis is a lawyer and writer living on Capitol Hill. In a recent essay, published in The Write Launch, an on-line literary journal, she reflected on the experience of her participation and that of an Afghan refugee tabla player in a benefit concert for Good Neighbors Capitol Hill, given by the Second String Orchestra, a community-based classical music group.
“….SSO performed in a January 2023 benefit concert for Good Neighbors of Capitol Hill. The charity serves refugees, preparing apartments for their families and assisting the adults in finding employment. As of that month, they had set up 98 apartments with donated furniture and other home necessities, as well as providing clothing and personal items to family members. During the concert, a tall Afghan man performed with us, playing a solo on the tabla, a pair of hand drums part of an ancient rhythmic tradition.
The instrument is common to Indian classical music; its versatility allows use in other genres as well. The piece our guest soloist played was mesmerizing, a percussive odyssey that transfixed the audience of about 300 in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. I stood at my place in the first violin section, solemn and silent along with the other SSO members. Listening to this man play, watching this husband of Afghanistan’s only female orchestraconductor, this father of a preschool daughter. I thought about the life they had abandoned, the courage it took to leave their home and other family members, the hardships they were facing. The moment was heart-rending. It was sobering. It was painful. And yet, it was joyful, too. I felt this man’s musicianship crossing divisions of cultures and countries. Revealing all that was real, absolute, and unchangeable, transcending the dependency of material existence.”
Linda’s complete essay “Mismeasured” can be found in the August 2025 issue of The Write Launch
