The cellist of Baghdad plays at location of fatal car bombing

A normally busy thoroughfare in Baghdad's Mansour district was eerily quiet one morning earlier this week... except for the sound of music. Traffic was being rerouted away from the road after a car bombing the night before that killed at least five people, and maimed another 15. 

The principal conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra performed an impromptu solo performance in the blast zone of the bombing.

Sickened by the bloodshed, Karim Wasfi decided he wanted to make a statement. And he wanted to make it with his cello. So the principal conductor with the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra walked down to the blast zone. He rolled a stool out onto the charred pavement, unpacked his cello ... and played.

Music is a very powerful tool to help us reconcile, interact and tolerate.- Iraqi conductor Karim Wasfi

"I was at the exact same spot, believe it or not, only hours earlier: Wasfi said about the site of the car bombing. He said his impromptu performance was meant to be both a personal act and a global act.

"Music is a very powerful tool to help us reconcile, interact, and tolerate. There are so many other reasons why I consider music to be a global language for mankind."

Wasfi played a personal composition called The Melancholy in Baghdad Mourning, part of a series he has written honouring the city's many victims after more than a decade of war and bloodshed. 

"People were very supportive and positive," he said of those who stopped to listen to him play. "I even had  a soldier crying, saying this was very touching. He said 'I love your music. I wish our officials were as patriotic as you are.'"

Wasfi said he is hoping his performance will start a movement across Iraq. He says he'd like to build a cultural army of musicians who face adversity armed with instruments rather than machine guns. 

"At the chosen time, we will all agree - whether we are in the hundreds or the thousands or people - on playing something at the same time," he said. "A sad event like that [car bombing] may be the catalyst for people to consider even more what I have been trying to achieve."