U.S.-Pyongyang Crescendo As Orchestra Plans Visit

By Daniel J. Wakin

Adding a cultural wrinkle to the diplomatic engagement between the United States and North Korea, the New York Philharmonic plans to visit Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in February, taking the legacy of Beethoven, Bach and Bernstein to one of the most isolated countries in the world.

The trip, at the invitation of North Korea, will be the first significant cultural visit by Americans to that country, and it comes as the United States is offering the possibility of warmer ties with a country that President George W. Bush once consigned to the “axis of evil.”

“We haven’t even had Ping-Pong diplomacy with these people,” said Ambassador Christopher Hill, the Bush administration’s main diplomat for negotiations with North Korea and the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

Just last week Bush sent a letter to Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, suggesting that ties would improve if North Korea fully disclosed all nuclear programs and got rid of its nuclear weapons.

Conservatives have criticized the Bush administration for engaging with North Korea when Pyongyang has violated previous nuclear promises and in the face of recent intelligence indicating that the country may have assisted Syria in beginning work on a reactor.

State Department officials said the orchestra’s invitation from North Korea and its acceptance represented a potential opening in the Communist country’s relationship with the outside world and a softening of its unrelenting anti-American propaganda.

“It would signal that North Korea is beginning to come out of its shell, which everyone understands is a long-term process,” Hill said. “It does represent a shift in how they view us, and it’s the sort of shift that can be helpful as we go forward in nuclear weapons negotiations.”

The Philharmonic’s trip, which has generated some controversy among orchestra musicians and commentators, will follow other groundbreaking orchestra tours that played a role in diplomacy, the most famous one, perhaps, taking place in 1973, when the Philadelphia Orchestra traveled to China soon after President Richard Nixon’s historic visit and amid what came to be known as Ping-Pong diplomacy.

In 1956 the Boston Symphony was the first major American orchestra to travel to the Soviet Union. The New York Philharmonic, under Leonard Bernstein, went three years later.

Of the Philharmonic’s excursion to North Korea, Hill said, “I hope it will be looked back upon as an event that helped bring that country back into the world.”

The Philharmonic, led by its music director, Lorin Maazel, has been considering the visit since an invitation arrived by fax in August. It was a typed letter from the North Korean Culture Ministry, in English, accompanied by a cover letter from a private individual in California who said he was acting as an intermediary. The orchestra had the invitation authenticated by the State Department. Hill said that he did not know how the invitation had come about. But its timing was significant, following a series of breakthroughs in a decade-long effort to have North Korea halt its nuclear program.

North Korea agreed in February to shut down its main reactor in exchange for economic aid and other inducements. The reactor was switched off in July, a month before the invitation. And in September the Bush administration said that North Korea had agreed to disable its main nuclear fuel plant and give an accounting of its nuclear facilities, fuel and weapons by the end of the year. Progress toward the Philharmonic’s visit accelerated when orchestra executives and a State Department official visited Pyongyang in October.

The final major logistic pieces of the concert fell into place late last week, after a visit to Seoul by Zarin Mehta, president of the orchestra.

A Philharmonic spokesman, Eric Latzky, confirmed the trip but declined to discuss details publicly until a news conference Tuesday, when the trip is to be formally announced.

Hill, who was in Pyongyang last week delivering Bush’s letter and inspecting nuclear facilities, said he planned to attend the news conference. He has spoken privately to orchestra members. Even more surprising, the Philharmonic said that Pak Kil Yon, Pyongyang’s representative to the United Nations, would attend the news conference, a rare public appearance by a North Korean diplomat.

Hill said he believed that the conditions sought by the Philharmonic had been met. They included the presence of foreign journalists; a nationwide broadcast to ensure that not just a small elite would hear the concert; acoustical adjustments to the East Pyongyang Grand Theater; an assurance that the eight Philharmonic members of Korean origin would not encounter difficulties; and that the orchestra could play “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Once the orchestra members gave their approval, the major stumbling block became transportation. The orchestra, staff members and journalists are expected to number about 250. A plane that can also carry the many large instruments had to be found.

Asiana Airlines, a South Korean carrier, offered such a plane, provided that financing could be secured, said Evans Revere, a former senior U.S. diplomat who is president of the Korea Society, which helped plan the visit. MBC, one of three main broadcasters in South Korea, offered to pay for the charter in exchange for the rights to broadcast an extra concert by the Philharmonic in Seoul on its return from Pyongyang, Revere said.

“The balance that’s being achieved here is pretty nifty,” he said. “It’s a nice message being sent to the peninsula that the premier American orchestra is performing in both capitals within hours of each other.”

One of the remaining loose ends is the procurement of climate- controlled trucks to transport instruments to and from the airport. One possibility is arranging for South Korean trucks to be driven across the border.

The North Korean government can be unpredictable, and there is always the possibility that the visit could be derailed. The concert is planned for Feb. 26, at the end of a previously planned tour in China. The orchestra is expected to stay in Pyongyang for two nights, and the visit is to include some teaching and a ceremonial dinner.

Some questions have been raised about the appropriateness of visiting a country run by one of the most repressive governments in the world. North Korean policies have been blamed in part for the famine-related starvation of perhaps two million people, and the government confines hundreds of thousands of people in labor camps.

Hill acknowledged that “in a very theoretical way” any kind of opening lends legitimacy to the North Korean government. “But not opening up has not had any positive effect in bringing North Korea out of its shell,” he said.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

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