August 13, 2011
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The Pyongyang Concert
Something like the ping-pong diplomacy, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra played a concert in North Korea in 2008. They filmed the concert and also produced a documentary, all nicely in a blue-ray disc.
Naturally the documentary is more interesting than the concert, and neither Dvorak nor Arirang in the concert convinced me that music has bridged the two enemies. But when it came to the documentary where 4 N.Koreans played with 4 NYPO members in a Mendelssohn chamber music, I could really see the flow of mutual understandings and interactions between them. Music is really the common language, at least between musicians.
