Musicians in the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra warm up in a curtained-off area of the hall before a performance May 21, 2008 in the Green Zone of Baghdad, Iraq. The orchestra played a performance for a gathering of Iraqi officials and Western bureaucrats working in the Green Zone, playing Rossini, Dvorak, and Mussorgsky as well as a selection of Iraq traditional music. The orchestra is a throwback to another time in Iraq, before the US invasion, when men and women mixed easily and Western culture was celebrated rather than reviled. The orchestra was once one of the best in Middle East, has had few opportunities to play since the fall of the Saddam regime and onset of civil strife. By Chris Hondros/Getty Images.
The Dish 