The first time I saw Karim Wasfi, director and chief conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, we were in Baghdad. It was early 2008, the Surge had just begun to take effect, and getting around the city still required plenty of nerve. I wrote on these pages that Mr. Wasfi had turned up at the wheel of his highly visible white Range Rover wearing a blazer, vest and ascot, and had driven me downtown with "Ride of the Valkyries" blaring on the stereo. The "checkpoint militias gaped incredulously and waved us on," I noted back then.
Mr. Wasfi, now age 39, came through here recently on a trip to drum up support for a possible U.S. tour and to visit old friends—in his early 20s he had completed his cello studies under the renowned Hungarian cellist János Starker at Indiana University, Bloomington, and also studied political science at Boston University.
This time, when we met at a Greenwich Village cigar bar on a very cold night, he wore a bow-tie instead of an ascot, but otherwise he looked the same.
I asked him if things had improved significantly for the Iraqi symphony. Three years ago, he had itemized a menu of adversities: out of 70 orchestra members, only 50 remained in Baghdad and even fewer made it to rehearsals. Underfunded and under siege from violent incidents, electricity cuts, cracking instruments, pitiful wages, stolen sheet music, and decaying buildings and sound systems, the orchestra had kept going with no stable venue in which to rehearse or perform. Mr. Wasfi had run the show since 2004 and survived several random attacks. Then, as now, he was conscious that, for Iraqis, the symphony symbolized an elevated alternative to the "barbarism everywhere."
"We've moved forward a lot since 2008," he said in New York. "I'm now able to struggle with artistic quality—getting the music right—rather than logistics or mere survival. This last year we put on 23 full-orchestra concerts around the country. In those days I was hoping for one chamber-music performance a month somewhere in town.
"Now, the orchestra has expanded to 90 members. We've put on very fine performances of 'Rhapsody in Blue' and Grieg's piano concerto, Wagner, Brahms and specially commissioned works by Iraqi composers. In November we played Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Sheherezade'—a grand, challenging piece that can be a sweeping, stirring thing of flamboyant sounds or just a bunch of loud noises. We rehearsed it for two months. It makes a great difference that we have a stable home at the Institute of Fine Arts [in the well-heeled suburb of Mansour]—not a concert hall, alas, but still it's a proper theater with a smallish band pit. The auditorium capacity is 900 people and the place is packed every time, so we get a lot of support. This is partly because I still insist on free admissions for now, but also because so many Baghdadis want this for their city. We get funded primarily by the Ministry of Culture, but other ministries like to help in various ways too. Everybody understands that we illustrate a kind of collective achievement for the country."
Mr. Wasfi doesn't like to complain. With some coaxing he put things in perspective: "Well, OK, there are still difficulties. I had to move my wife and two little girls abroad because our apartment complex was partly demolished when the nearby Foreign Ministry got bombed last winter. I thought, why should they be facing shrapnel to support my convictions? Then, yes, we had a bad moment when the Municipal Building with the main courthouse was 80% demolished by a car-bomb just across the road from the orchestra. Everybody spent two long days clearing up the glass and rubble and then we went ahead with a planned concert. Apparently, the perpetrators subsequently left a message on a website apologizing for damaging us accidentally."
I wondered if the symphony faced direct threats—after all, many extreme Islamists disapprove of all music. "We have every sect in the orchestra, Christians, Shiites, Sunnis, women, Kurds. I've also launched a youth orchestra and an after-school youth academy where we teach music, civics, manners and the like to almost 300 kids. We pay poor kids to attend. Some even come all the way across town from Sadr City. Yes, I'm sure there are fanatics who disapprove of the symphony, but we've generated such goodwill that they're afraid to oppose us publicly. The Institute of Fine Arts lay disused for two years until we made it our home. We brought new life to the area so the entire neighborhood helps keep us safe."
Making a concert happen securely is still a huge undertaking in Baghdad, Mr. Wasfi said. "We have to get past endless stubborn checkpoints—that can take hours. For a concert, the area around us is combed repeatedly starting two days before by the army, police and the security contractors of attending VIPs. Cars park miles away and people walk. Then there are personal searches, ID checks, car searches. Police on top of buildings. It's a major operation. The authorities really want us to succeed."
In May 2010, the symphony had its first American guest performer, the 13-year-old American piano prodigy Llewellyn Kingman Sanchez Werner. "The venue was in the Green Zone at the Al Rashid Hotel, and we had to get the Steinway there from across town," Mr. Wasfi said. "We had to call the prime minister, who lent us his quick response squad—the SWAT team in effect—to load up the piano and zoom it through with sirens blaring. I think Llewellyn was a little alarmed by the conditions at first—he came into a scene with blast walls, razor wire, armored cars along roads; he had to wear a helmet and lead vest from the airport. But he performed wonderfully—and the house loved him for coming here, for his maturity and courage."
Significantly, Mr. Wasfi has not pushed to get the symphony's concerts on television. "I want people to make the effort to come to the live experience," he says. "Culture should be a communally shared experience. These days you get music and performance via numerous TV channels without ever leaving home. In Baghdad, we share culture without ever seeing each other. It's safer. We share it in isolation. It doesn't bring the city together. Think about that. What a bizarre situation. Overcoming that in full public view, setting an example and luring people out, helping them trust the public space—that's another goal for the symphony. As if we didn't have enough goals."
Mr. Kaylan writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.