The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra will come to Washington for a joint Kennedy Center concert with the National Symphony on Dec. 9.

The performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was announced Monday by Michael M. Kaiser, the center's president, who just returned from a three-day visit to Baghdad.

Kaiser met with the orchestra's chief conductor, Abdel Razak Al-Azawi, and about 30 other artists, officials and people from arts organizations on promoting a program of exchanges between the United States and Iraq.

"It's through the arts that peoples get to know one another," Kaiser said. "The arts organizations and artists in Iraq will require a plan for future development. I hope these first conversations set the stage for ongoing dialogue with Iraqi arts groups."

The 55-member Iraqi orchestra, founded in 1959, is rehearsing three times a week in 105-degree heat without air conditioning, Kaiser said.

It gave a concert in Baghdad's Convention Center during the summer and has been playing in other Iraqi cities. The orchestra does not have a concert hall.

Kaiser said the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra will give two concerts in Washington. One, with the Washington orchestra, will include a performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. There will be three conductors: Al-Azawi; Leonard Slatkin, the National Symphony's music director, and Abdullah Jamal Sagirma, composer of "Symphonic Poem No. 2" which includes six Kurdish folk instruments.

Kaiser said the Iraqi orchestra will perform a second concert for schoolchildren of the Washington area.

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