Iraqi virtuoso oud player Naseer Shamma returns to homeland with plans to fund education, arts in war-torn nation BAGHDAD — War kept him away from his beloved homeland for decades. Now, virtuoso oud ...

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Long uprooted from his native Iraq, Naseer Shamma, an icon of the Arabic oud, has returned home to help rekindle the flame of Iraqi music. Exiled in 1993 under dictator Saddam Hussein, Naseer Shamma ...

Listen • 3:11 20170629_me_as_isis_gets_squeezed_in_syria_and_iraq_its_using_music_as_a_weapon_.mp3 Three years ago, the Islamic State overran large swaths of Iraq ...

A small but vital musical revolution has been taking place in Israel. In the last two decades, a small group of Mizrahi Jews — Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent — have returned to their ...

Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, who opened Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival with a Friday afternoon performance backed by his band the Kuwaitis and will do the same this weekend, has deep roots.

Until Yoni Battat '13 was a teenager, Jewish music meant klezmer. In his synagogue and at his Jewish school outside New Haven, Connecticut, he heard and played the Eastern European-style folk music.