TEL AVIV -- Amid a heated war of words between Israel and Iran over the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions, one musician is hoping that an unconventional weapon will help cool the tensions.

Iranian-born Israeli Menashe Sasson, 67, broadcasts traditional Persian melodies for an audience in his old home country from a studio in Israel. He hears a note of optimism in the melancholic music and believes it can help Iranians and Israelis overcome the rhetoric of hate.

Every Friday morning, Sasson makes his way to Radio RadisIn in Rishon Lezion, a city south of Tel Aviv, and removes an ancient instrument called a santur from a large case. Sasson, dressed formally in a jacket and tie, taps gently on the strings with a pair of slender hammers and produces a delicate sound that is instantly evocative of the Middle East.

Sasson and his beloved santur moved to Israel 50 years ago but he was born in Isfahan, an Iranian town that is both a center of the Jewish population in Iran and home to one of the country's nuclear research facilities.

"I hope that my music can one day bring the hearts of both nations together," he said.

Amir Shai, who founded Radio RadisIn four-and-a-half years ago, feels a similar sense of mission.

"I had one main goal: to introduce the Israeli culture to the Iranians," Shai said. "For years the Iranian leadership poisoned the Iranian people with lies about Israel. It's time to change this."

Paul Goldman / NBC News

Manashe Sasson says he hopes his ancient santur music will "bring the hearts of both nations together."

Shai sees his radio station as a bridge between two nations in desperate need of better communication, and Sasson and his santur play a big part.

While not a household name in Iran, Sasson says he receives hundreds of emails from fans there. "There are a lot of peace-loving Iranians who contact me knowing I'm an Israeli. They're encouraging me and this warms my heart," he said.

There is some dispute over the size of the Jewish community in Iran. It has shrunk considerably since the Islamic Revolution but remains the biggest Jewish community outside of Israel in the Middle East.

Sasson hopes the situation for Jews in Iran will change.

"Iran is a beautiful country that has become the biggest prison in the world. It's like time has stopped there," he said. "The Iranian people deserve freedom.''

Related:

• Full Israel coverage from NBC News.com
• Full Iran coverage from NBC News

David Gray / REUTERS

Ai Weiwei.

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei announced plans on Monday to release a heavy-metal album that he said would "express his opinion" just as he does with his art.

The burly and bearded Ai said 81 days in secretive detention in 2011, which sparked an international outcry, triggered his foray into music.

"When I was arrested, they (his guards) would often ask me to sing songs, but because I wasn't familiar with music, I was embarrassed," Ai, 55, said in a telephone interview. "It helped me pass the time very easily.

"All I could sing was Chinese People's Liberation Army songs," Ai said. "After that I thought: when I'm out, I'd like to do something related to music."

A court in September upheld a $2.4 million fine against Ai for tax evasion, paving the way for jail if he does not pay. Ai maintains the charges were trumped up in retaliation for his criticism of the government.

The world-renowned artist has repeatedly criticized the government for flouting the rule of law and the rights of citizens.

Ai's debut album -- "Divina Commedia", after the poem by Italian poet Dante -- is a reference to the "Ai God" nickname in Chinese that his supporters call him by. "God" in Chinese is "Shen", while "Divina Commedia" in Chinese is "Shen qu."

Two songs are about blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest last April and subsequent refuge in the U.S. Embassy embarrassed China and led to a diplomatic tussle.

One song on the album is called "Hotel Americana," a dig at the U.S. Embassy for sheltering Chen. Another is "Climbing over the Wall" -- a reference to Chen's scaling of the walls in his village to escape, and Chinese Internet users circumventing the "Great Firewall of China," a colloquial term for China's blocking of websites.

Ai said he was not worried about government persecution for his album, which will be out in about three weeks. But he is gloomy about the prospects of it being sold in China, saying he will distribute the album online "because music is also subject to review" in China.

Ai said his time in the recording studio did not mean that he was moving away from art.

"I think it's all the same," he said. "My art is about expressing opinion and communication."

Ai said he was working on a second album, with pop and rock influences, that he hoped people would sing along with.

"You know, I'm a person that's furthest away from music, I never sing," Ai said. "But you'll be surprised. You'll like it."

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Kashmir's first all-girl rock band Pragaash perform at the annual 'Battle of the Bands' in Srinagar on Dec. 23, 2012.

EDITOR'S NOTE: NBC News obscured the faces in this photo to protect the band members' identities because of safety concerns.

The only all-girl band in India’s troubled Kashmir region has split up after a controversial Muslim cleric issued a fatwa against them.

However, the cleric -- Grand Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad – is now facing a backlash with a leading human-rights lawyer planning to take him to court over his claim that the band, Pragaash, was un-Islamic and other pronouncements.

After the fatwa, the three teenage girls received online threats prompting police to arrest three people, according to several reports including one by BBC News.

Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said on Twitter that he was “glad” that arrests had been made.

In an interview with India’s NDTV, a band member named as Aneeka, who is still in high school, insisted that “nothing has forced us to quit.”

“We quit for the happiness of our people. As the grand mufti said, it is un-Islamic ... that’s why we quit,” she said. NDTV pixilated her face when the interview was broadcast.

“Mufti … is a saint. He knows about our religion and must be respected,” Aneeka added.

'They feel very harassed'
However, for human rights lawyer Parvez Imroz, of the Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, the fatwa against Pragaash was the last straw and he is now planning to take Ahmad to court.

“The lives of these girls were threatened. They feel very harassed,” he said.

Imroz, who is Muslim, said the grand mufti had appointed himself to the role and set up his own “supreme court.”

Ahmad's comments about Pragaash were the latest in a number of “very controversial” fatwas over the last few years, Imroz said, including calling for Americans to leave Kashmir and for Christians to appear in his court.

“We are filing the case because he’s claiming to be some ‘grand mufti.’ Under no law is there any such title,” the lawyer said. “Kashmir is very tolerant. Music … is part of our culture. These girls, they have a right to do it, but I’m telling you we are raising the bigger question about this institution in the society, this self-appointed priest and mufti who has been giving a very reactionary … view of Islam.”

Imroz said he wanted the court to rule that Ahmad had no legal standing, describing him as a “non-entity.”

Kashmir is claimed by India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over the region. It is the only state in India where the majority of people are Muslims.

In comments posted on NDTV’s website, some expressed their anger at the criticism of the band.

“We're heading in prehistoric era thanks to morons,” one said.

“It's really disheartening to see such narrow views are still being propagated in the country,” another added.

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KABUL, Afghanistan - From the cold basement of an orphanage in Kabul, the beat of a bass drum bounces through the halls.

Hitting the high hat and cymbals was Laila, a 13-year old orphan and the only known female drummer in Afghanistan. 

"I like playing the drums and there are no other girls in Afghanistan playing the drums,” Laila said with a big smile. “I'm the only girl and I want to become well known as an Afghan girl playing drums.”

For now, she plays in a basement, but soon it'll be D.C.'s Kennedy Center and New York's Carnegie Hall. 

Laila and 10 other girls from her orphanage will be joining ensembles from the Afghan National Institute of Music as they make their U.S. debut. 

For many of the performers, it will be their first time out of the country and their first time in America. 

"I hear it is very clean and has big buildings and you have such freedom there,” 10-year old Sapna said. "I forget the name of the president of America, but I have heard of him."

Sapna plays the piano and likes the "fast songs" that allow her to move her little fingers quickly over the keys. 

Music is part of the curriculum at this orphanage run by Andeisha Farid, the executive director of the Afghan Child Education and Caring Organization. 

'Hope for a better future'
In a country where female freedoms are few, Farid said these young girls represent the potential in Afghanistan's future.

"Afghan women, they suffer so badly. They even struggle for their very basic human rights,” Farid said. “We hope for a better future for Afghanistan. If we can properly invest in these children, a long-term investment, they realize that there is hope in Afghanistan.”

The sheer fact that dozens of girls are practicing and learning music is a sign of progress in a country where only an estimated 15 percent of women can even read and write, never mind read music or play an instrument.

The arts and music suffered heavily under the Taliban, and not just for women. 

Since 2001 a small group of Afghans have worked to bring music back to the country. Ahmad Sarmast, who holds a doctorate in music, spearheaded the movement and the effort culminated in the 2010 establishment of the Afghan National Institute of Music. 

Musicians and their mentors from the ANIM will embark on a two-week tour of the U.S. starting February 2. They'll be playing a combination of classical and Afghan pieces.

Music has given these children an opportunity that so few have in Afghanistan and they are eager to share what they've learned.

"People can understand each other's hearts through music. American people can understand Afghan hearts and Afghans can understand American hearts. It's universal," said Sapna.

Yet, hurdles remain. 

Twelve-year-old Fareshta said pressure from her home village prevented her from playing the trumpet.

NBC first met Fareshta when Brian Williams visited her orphanage.

Fareshta said people in her village threatened to make her family outcasts if she kept on attending music school. 

She now only plays when she is in the orphanage. And, while the other girls prepare for their performances in the U.S., she won't be going. 

"I want to go music school and play more music," Fareshta said.

She shrugged when asked if it all seemed unfair. After all, so much that has and is happening in Afghanistan seems unfair.

But after listening to a girl like Laila practicing on the drums, it is easy to understand that the music these young people create is a message of hope in a country awash with disappointments. 

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GENEVA, Switzerland -- Claude Nobs, who founded the Montreux Jazz Festival nearly 50 years ago, has died after several weeks in a coma following a skiing accident, the festival said on Friday.

Valentin Flauraud / Reuters file

Montreux Jazz Festival founder Claude Nobs on July 3, 2009.

The Swiss impresario immortalized by rock group Deep Purple as "Funky Claude" in the song "Smoke on the Water" and who lured the biggest stars of the music world to his festival on the shores of Lake Geneva died on Thursday at the age of 76.

"He died peacefully, surrounded by family and close friends," said a statement issued by the festival, where Mathieu Jaton assumed his duties as director earlier this week.

Nobs launched the summer festival in 1967 while working as an accountant at the Swiss resort's tourism office. Over the years, his blend of persistence, patience and charm managed to persuade leading lights such as Miles Davis, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Prince to take the stage at Montreux.

But he often had to meet their whims to coax them along.

"I got Miles a Ferrari for him to drive along the lake, Nina Simone wanted a diamond watch and we found the mineral water that Prince likes in Geneva. We always find a way," Nobs told Reuters last April during an interview at his beloved chalet.

A former festival employee told Reuters on Friday: "He was a shy man but still managed to negotiate. That was his strength and led him to create something huge."

Nobs fell while cross-country skiing on Christmas Eve near his chalet in Caux, overlooking Montreux, a property that he shared with his longtime partner Thierry Amsallem, who is in charge of digitalizing the festival's archives of 5,000 hours.

Last year's two-week festival, which attracted about 250,000 people, featured sold-out concerts by Bob Dylan, American chanteuse Lana Del Rey and British actor and musician Hugh Laurie.

A musical tribute to the people of Montreux is planned in February, in accordance with his wishes, to be followed by events in New York and London this spring, festival board president Francois Carrard told Reuters.

CHALET PARTIES
Nobs threw legendary parties at his chalet, full of vintage Wurlitzer jukeboxes, flat screen TVs and sophisticated sound equipment. Waiters delivered fine food and champagne around a pool with a breathtaking view of the Alps.

A Japanese kimono worn by Freddie Mercury, a print signed by Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones and a larger-than-life bust of Aretha Franklin were among mementoes on display.

Film director Roman Polanski stopped in on his way to see his wife Emmanuelle Seigner perform at Montreux in 2010. Days earlier he had been freed from house arrest in Gstaad after Swiss authorities said they would not extradite him to the United States to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Herbie Hancock, Van Morrison, Phil Collins and Gilberto Gil have all been regulars at the festival, whose two venues are the larger Stravinski Auditorium and more intimate Miles Davis Hall.

In the mid-1960s, after his first flight on an airplane, Nobs formed a decisive and lifetime friendship in New York with Atlantic Records executive Nesuhi Ertegun, whose father was a former ambassador of Turkey to Switzerland.

"That first time I met Nesuhi, I had no credentials, nothing, something magical happened," Nobs recalled in his memoirs "Live! From Montreux", first published in 2007.

Of the first edition, he wrote: "That first festival was obviously when I had to learn a massive amount extremely quickly - from how you deal with one artist arriving whilst the act from the previous night's show still hasn't woken up yet, let alone vacated the suite the incoming band are supposed to be going straight into."

The Deep Purple anthem which dubbed Nobs "Funky" was written about a fire that burned down Montreux casino during a Frank Zappa concert in 1971.

Despite heart surgery some six years ago, Nobs had stayed on as festival director, a position he shared during the 1990s with American producer Quincy Jones who returns each year from Los Angeles to introduce new talent and refers to Montreux as the "Rolls-Royce of festivals."

Nobs often joined musicians on stage, playing harmonica, sometimes accompanied by his St. Bernard dogs.

The 47th edition is scheduled for July 5-20.

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Ravi Shankar playing the sitar on May 31, 1966.

Michael Putland / Getty Images Contributor

Musician and composer Ravi Shankar in London in 1974.

NBC News reports — Pandit Ravi Shankar, the best known contemporary Indian musician, died Tuesday evening in San Diego, Calif. He was 92.

Shankar's final performance, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, Calif., was billed as a celebration of his 10th decade of making music. But it was his association with the Beatles -- in particular, guitarist George Harrison -- in the 1960s that helped introduce Shankar to a global audience. Read the full story.

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George Harrison with Ravi Shankar, circa 1975.

Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images

George Harrison poses for a portrait with Ravi Shankar, circa 1975.

Rob Verhorst / Getty Images Contributor

Ravi Shankar performing on stage in an undated file photo.

Sandro Campardo / EPA

Ravi Shankar performing at the Paleo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland on July 19, 2005.

Steve Thorne / Getty Images Contributor

Ravi Shankar performs on stage at Symphony Hall on June 16, 2011 in Birmingham, England.

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The Beatles in 1965.

The Beatles museum in Hamburg, Germany will close at the end of this month due to a lack of interest, the NME reports.

Photos: Rare Beatles pictures

The Beatlemania museum, which has a collection of over 1,000 pieces of memorabilia, opened on the Reeperbahn strip in Hamburg in 2009. The site of the museum is located near the venues where the band played many of their earliest shows. Despite all this, the museum has had an estimated 150,000 visitors in the past three years, well below expectations of the museum owners.

Arne Bellstorf illustrates the young Beatles in 'Baby's in Black'

"In view of the high deficits, there is no solution left but closure, if you want to act responsibily," museum manager Folkert Koopmanns told the German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost. "A privately run museum as big as Beatlemania is condemned to fail without public support. That's a fact that we fought against until enthusiasm turned into resignation -- a bitter experience."

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Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Nicki Minaj

Singer Nicki Minaj is denying claims that one of her dancers was involved with the death of a fan, who died shortly after attending Minaj's Tokyo concert on May 23. 

According to MTV.com's RapFix, the 21-year-old fan -- Nicola Furlong -- was a foreign exchange student from Ireland's Dublin City University. She attended the show at Zepp Tokyo, and was discovered strangled in her hotel room just a few hours later.

"Saddened to learn one of my precious fans; found tragically murdered in Japan. My love & prayers are with the family of Nicola Furlong," Minaj tweeted later.

Irish Central reports that two Americans, 23-year-old dancer James "King Tight" Jamari Blackston and another musician (whose name was being withheld since he is considered a minor under Japanese law) have been held and questioned over Furlong's death.

The controversy began when Perez Hilton alleged on May 30 that one of those arrested on suspicion of rape and murder was a backup dancer for Minaj. This did not go over well with Minaj, who took to Twitter to refute the claim.

"My dancers had nothing to do w/this tragedy. No one in my entourage was questioned or arrested. They all flew home from Japan," she tweeted Thursday. She added, "@PerezHilton that person on your sight is NOT my dancer. We do NOT know the men in custody. Too much misleading information."

A new blog post on Hilton's site went on to offer this mea culpa: "Sounds to us then like these monsters may have lied about being associated with Her Minajesty just to lure these poor girls in."

Tokyo police released a statement that Irish Central published, noting: "These two men allegedly took advantage of a female unable to resist due to the fact she was in a comatose state from a highly alcoholic beverage.... As that is an indecent act, they have been charged with quasi forcible indecency."

Quasi-forcible indecency is a Japanese legal term used to describe sexual assault.

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David Mdzinarishvili / REUTERS

Loreen of Sweden performs her song "Euphoria" after winning the Eurovision song contest in Baku, Azerbaijan.

BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Sweden's Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan on Sunday before an international TV audience of 100 million, days after angering Azeri authorities by meeting rights activists critical of the host country's human rights record.

Opposition groups have used the Eurovision spotlight, intended by Azerbaijan to promote the country as a destination for tourism and business, to demand democracy and the resignation of the government. Dozens of peaceful protesters have been arrested this month in the Caspian coastal capital, Baku. Activists say some buildings in the center of the city were torn down to make way for the Eurovision arena and residents were forcibly evicted without proper compensation.

The 28-year-old pop singer won with the song "Euphoria" in the annual competition of 42 countries, delighting viewers and the contest's professional judges and dancing barefoot as she sang.

"This is about all of us! Thank you so very much!" Loreen told a news conference.

She said the first to congratulate her were her family and her crew. Her mother joined her briefly at the news conference.

"Time has stopped," Loreen said about her feelings after she was announced as winner.

Russia's entry, rural folk group Buranovskiye Babushki (Grannies from Buranovo) came in second and Serbia's Zeljko Joksimovic was third in the 57th year of a contest famous for heavy-duty kitsch.

David Mdzinarishvili / REUTERS

Loreen, right, of Sweden lifts the trophy and flowers after winning the Eurovision contest.

The competition took place in a specially built "Crystal Hall" on the shores of the Caspian.

Loreen has met with activists who accuse the government of forcing people from their homes for the building of the hall, an accusation Baku denies. Azeri authorities accused her of making political statements that had no place at a musical event.

'Historical and magical'

Hundreds of people started pouring into a roundabout in central Stockholm, dancing in a fountain, honking horns and waving flags and playing the winning song.

"This is historical and magical! I think I'm going to die. This is the best thing that has happened to Sweden in 13 years!" said 20-year-old Tanja Tuuliainen from Stockholm, wearing a Swedish flag and drinking a bottle of champagne with her girlfriends on the edge of a fountain in downtown Stockholm.

Sweden's entry last won the Eurovision competition in 1999.

Celebrants were bathing in their underwear in the fountain, where Swedes traditionally celebrate major sporting event wins.

Hundreds were singing "We're going up up up up up!!!", repeating a line from Loreen's song.

David Mdzinarishvili / REUTERS

Loreen of Sweden holds the trophy and flowers after winning the Eurovision song contest in Baku, Azerbaijan, early Sunday.

The Eurovision Song Contest has been a launching pad for international careers. Swedish pop group Abba became famous after winning in 1974 with "Waterloo" and Canada's Celine Dion took top honors in 1988 for Switzerland.

To promote talent over politically and geographically motivated bloc voting, professional judges now account for 50 percent of a performer's score.

The other half comes from telephone and SMS votes received by each contestant, with fans unable to vote for their own country's entry.

As winner, Sweden will host the next Eurovision contest.

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