New York, Dec 30 (DPA) The New York Philharmonic will be in Pyongyang for just 48 hours in February on its first visit there, giving North Koreans a rare taste of classical and Western music in the tightly controlled communist nation.
If the Pyongyang government is true to its word, some North Koreans living in the countryside will also hear “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the US national anthem, through a radio broadcast for the first time in their lives. The momentous opportunity of the Philharmonic’s presence in Pyongyang is unique in cultural and musical diplomacy.
The Philharmonic’s ventures into communist lands began with the Soviet Union in 1959 when the orchestra under Leonard Bernstein boarded a Dutch company plane dubbed “the flying Dutchman” for the first trip to Moscow.
China began opening up to the West in the 1960s and welcomed the Philharmonic to the mainland under Kurt Masur in 1998. China’s current craze of classical music would reach a climax if the Philharmonic were to visit Beijing on its way to Pyongyang for its Feb 25-27 performance. There was no confirmation if it will perform in Beijing.
The programme for Pyongyang, under conductor Lorin Maazel, includes Wagner’s Lohengrin, Dvorak’s Symphony No 9, From the New World and Gershwin’s An American in Paris. But the orchestra would also be expected to play the US and North Korean anthems, a traditional gesture in a host country.
“This journey is a manifestation of the power of music to unite people,” Zarin Mehta, the Philharmonic’s executive director, said earlier in December announcing the visit to Pyongyang.
Paul B. Guenther, the Philharmonic’s chairman, called the concerts on the Korean peninsula “unique” and said they grew out of the orchestra’s tradition of bringing music to all corners of the world.
“From the historic 1959 tour of the Soviet Union, to the 2003 celebration of Dresden’s rebuilt Frauenkirche, to the February concerts (in the Koreas), it is our hope that the music of the Philharmonic, can, in some way, serve as a catalyst for positive change,” Guenther said.
North Korea, an impoverished country living beyond its means while its leaders dream of nuclear power, also wants change by trading its nuclear knowledge for Western economic assistance.
The US state department has encouraged the Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea.
The Philharmonic is scheduled to travel to Seoul after Pyongyang for the 9th time. It performed in the South Korean capital for the first time in 1978.
In Seoul, the Philharmonic’s programme will include Beethoven’s Symphony No 5, which will be broadcast to North Korea as well.
It was the North Korean government that invited the Philharmonic in August, 2007 while the six-nation talks were underway to settle its dispute over its nuclear programme. The talks involved China, the two Koreas, the US, Japan and Russia.
North Korea has agreed to dismantle its nuclear reactors in return for economic development assistance, an unlikely step by the nation that prided itself on achieving nuclear power status.
But as news of the Philharmonic travelling to Pyongyang was made public, North Korea had yet to terminate its uranium enrichment programme and meet the year-end deadline for a clean sweep of its nuclear activities.
Despite its own political problems with the north, South Korea agreed to sponsor the Philharmonic’s travel costs to Pyongyang as part of diplomatic efforts to entice the north into adopting a more conciliatory policy for a peaceful and denuclearised peninsula.
South Korea’s Yoko Nagae Ceschina, Asiana Airlines and the Munhwa Broadcasting Company all contributed financial support to the Philharmonic to bring music to the North Koreans.
Since 1930, the oldest American orchestra has toured Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and Italy. But it has returned to Asia several times to perform in many Japanese cities, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta and several Indian cities.