National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

For more than a thousand years, Iraq has been one of the great homes of Arab classical music; it is a legacy that is still proudly borne, despite the country's tragic recent history and the looming antimusic sentiments of Muslim fundamentalists. For decades, young musicians from all over the Middle East would come to study at the Baghdad Institute.

Traditionally, many of Iraq's most celebrated artists came from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds. The famed late oud virtuoso Munir Bashir was born to an Assyrian father and a Kurdish mother; in the early and middle part of the 20th century, many prominent musicians came from the country's Jewish and Christian populations.

Iraq's most recent international star is pop songster Kazem al Saher (whose first name is also commonly spelled "Kadem" or "Kathem"). Now based in Cairo and a favorite across the Arab-speaking world for his romantic and lush approach, al Saher left his native country after the bloodshed of the Iran-Iraq War and the first Gulf War, but is careful to make no reference to politics on stage or in interviews. —Anastasia Tsioulcas