By the time Serwan Serini was 30, he had founded the Kurdistan National Symphony Orchestra despite a near-total lack of arts infrastructure in his homeland in the north of Iraq. He had dreams of using his love of music and art to help craft a true national identity for his people. But the endless cycle of violence in Iraq drove him to the U.S., and now, from his home base in the Twin Cities, “[he] has a new dream — to open a school to give Kurdish children a chance to learn music in ways he couldn’t.”