Kurdish music is hammering in the afternoon from a little white bus flashing its way around the turns on a four-lane street. The whole bus is shaking because 20-year-old flutist Waleed and his friends are dancing in typical Kurdish style. Those who aren't dancing are clapping and shouting encouragement to the five boys, who don't lose their balance even on the sharpest of curves.

I, on the other hand, fall on top of the cellist to my left or the violinist to my right again and again as I try to film the scene. But the two young women aren't bothered.

Spontaneous parties of this sort sprout up again and again. That's one unique thing about this orchestra: during rehearsals, they're hungry to learn and concentrated, but as soon as the instruments are put away, they start laughing, talking and celebrating life. They're not defiant, just cheerful.

Ali Authman comes to the rehearsals. The Kurdish composer lives in the Netherlands and composed the work "Invocation," commissioned by Deutsche Welle.

He described it to me as a "prayer that is intended to foster peace among people."

Authman is going over a few final touches with the violins - places where he would play the rhythm differently. The exhaustion from the many long days of rehearsals is plain to see. During the short breaks, a viola player lies on the ground and dozes, and one cellist almost falls out of her seat, with her instrument between her legs.

During the lunch break, I accompany violinist Aya, oboist Murat and flutist Waleed into downtown Arbil: a young Arab woman from Baghdad with a punk haircut and orange finger nails, a journalist and orchestral musician from Baghdad and a music teacher from the city of Kirkuk. Arbil's center is dominated by a citadel that's estimated to be 5,000 years old. It's a stronghold with which the likes of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan once stood face to face.

We head to the markets. Juice and fruit stands light up the byways with shades of orange and pomegranate red. Bills are stacked in towers on the rickety tables of the money changers. Merchants cry out their deals in every direction. Mountains of sweets are for sale in every conceivable pastel.

But our conversation is about security. All three of my companions agree that life in Iraq is completely normal.

"Dangerous? No, it's not like that anymore. In the last few years, a lot has changed," Aya says.

I ask skeptically about car bombs and extremist forces and get a shrug as an answer. Maybe they're just tired of all of the same journalist questions about dangerous living in Iraq, especially in Baghdad. Murat prefers to talk about his fiancee, a Turkish oboist that he met in 2010 during the orchestra's summer session in Arbil.

"She is the most beautiful gift of this whole experience," he says.

Now it's especially important to him to find a place where the two can get married and live together. He doesn't want to bring her back to Baghdad because it would be too difficult for her there.

Waleed heads off to buy some apricot candies for everyone. His priority here is making friends.

"How else can I know if the young people in Baghdad are just as crazy about music as we are?" he says.

And when I ask if people on the street here know who Beethoven is, Aya suddenly sings from the Fifth Symphony, "Ta Ta Ta Taaa… yeah, of course, they all do that as soon as you ask." Of course, that's quite a bit different than if you would ask someone in Germany on the street to name an Iraqi composer.

But for now, the most important thing is deciding which candies to buy. A little treat to calm the nerves before heading back to rehearsals.

This evening, I'm invited into the home of Alan and Darwn's family. The two brothers play violin and viola. Like two other musicians in the orchestra, they're originally from Arbil. At the door of their two-story home, the family is waiting - a mother, a little sister and two older brothers. They fall into each other's arms, kisses flying back and forth. They haven't seen each other for a week because Alan and Darwn are staying in a hotel with the rest of the performers.

The family shares fresh dates, figs and sweet pastries while they all cheerfully catch up with each other. A picture of their father hangs on the wall, an artist who died two years prior. He encouraged his two sons to learn an instrument and supported them along the way. Their mother, Najat, is visibly proud of them. She's a resolute, warm and open-minded woman with laughing dark brown eyes.

"My sons are going to play in Germany, is that not wonderful?" she says. "Thank God they can play now."

The two brothers have been practicing for eight years. As an instrument is pulled from its case, their oldest brother jokes, "Please, not classical again."

Laughter flows - and more sweets - as a full moon shines down on the hot night.

Scroll down to stream performances and video from the rehearsals in Arbil.

Author: Bettina Kolb / gsw
Editor: Rick Fulker