This dissertation demonstrates how the historical Silk Road today serves as a model of intercultural hospitality. A theoretical examination of anthropological and philosophical theories of hospitality and inter- and multiculturalism enables the author to argue that equitable, intercultural exchanges can only take place within an ethos of intercultural hospitality. Relying on different ethnographic case studies in Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the author illustrates how this ethos figures in large-scale international musical events and projects. These events and projects most importantly include the state-sponsored International Fajr Music Festival and state media celebrations of Nowruz in Iran, the Academy of Maqom in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and a series of independent live and recorded musical performances in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. A comprehensive analysis of the 32nd Fajr Music Festival and its earlier editions reveals that state organizers often capitalize on a semblance of intercultural hospitality to promote the theocratic ideologies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The ethnographic analyses of this festival and state media celebrations of Nowruz in the 1980s and 1990s reveal that the Iranian regime readily relaxes its strict policies against music only when its agendas are at risk. By foregrounding the different approaches of musicians and other members of the Iranian music community, the author demonstrates how they strive to create conditions for intercultural exchanges in order to appear on international music scenes, make their work globally relevant, and resist the regime’s top-down policies. The author’s studies of the Academy of Maqom and independent musical performances in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan uncover how such enterprises are compliant with the secular nationalist creeds of the Tajik and Uzbek governments at the same time that their agents seek to engage with intercultural exchanges.