Eighty journalists accompanied the New York Philharmonic to Pyongyang for its February 26 concert in the 1,600-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theater.
Eighty journalists accompanied the New York Philharmonic to Pyongyang for its February 26 concert in the 1,600-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theater. Including orchestra members and staff, TV production crews and patrons who paid $100,000 a couple, the delegation of some 400 people was the largest contingent of Americans to visit North Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The concert opened with the national anthems of both countries and closed with Arirang, a Korean folk song popular in both North and South Korea. Snippets from Pyongyang dispatches: Blaine Harden, The Washington Post: “The 130-member orchestra and its press entourage entered the city in a convoy of buses, moving past little traffic, with most citizens in Pyongyang on foot or bicycles."
Christiane Amanpour, CNN: “No one could ever imagine the Star Spangled Banner being played here in public.”
Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times: “The audience applauded for more than five minutes [after the concert ended], and orchestra members, some of them crying, waved. People in the seats cheered and waved back, reluctant to let the visitors leave.”
OPC member Melinda Liu, Newsweek: “Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel, who sprinkled his comments to the audience with Korean phrases, said he felt the crowd warm to the music when he introduced ‘An American in Paris’ – Gershwin’s ode to the joy of discovery in a foreign land – and suggested that someday a composer might write ‘Americans in Pyongyang.’”
Burt Herman, AP: “The New York Philharmonic became the most prominent American cultural institution to visit isolated, nuclear armed North Korea, and orchestra members said they hoped their musical diplomacy could bring the two nations closer together.”
Jon Herskovitz, Reuters: “North Korea’s solitary television station broadcast the concert live to a population taught during 60 years of animosity to view all things foreign with deep suspicion – especially from the United States, officially their darkest enemy.”
Peter Landers, The Wall Street Journal: “New York Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel raised some controversy with his strong defense of the orchestra’s visit to Pyongyang, but no one in the room was arguing today [after he rehearsed North Korea’s orchestra] when he declared himself amazed at the level of North Korea’s state orchestra. . . . ‘I never expected such a high level.’”
Xinhua: “As the first cultural exchange event between the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] and the United States, the concert is widely regarded as an opportunity for both sides to build mutual trust and understanding.”
During the orchestra’s 48 hours in Pyongyang, minders took the accompanying journalists on a tour of the city including a library, an English language class, the subway and a 60-foot-high bronze statue of Kim Il–sung.
Wakin, The New York Times: “Journalists posed for pictures below the statue. In one case, a minder demanded that a photograph be deleted from a digital camera because it cut off Kim Il-sung’s hand. ‘It’s forbidden,’ the minder said.”
Bill Powell, Time: “ From that point on [start of the concert], for two hours, it was hard to remember that during the bus ride that afternoon, we had passed a poster of a giant fist smashing a little Uncle Sam that read ‘Smash the USA.’”