TT: The Philharmonic in Pyongyang

Published: December 11, 2007, 12:11 pm

Tags: main

I just got back from a press conference at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall at which the New York Philharmonic officially announced its plans to play in Pyongyang on February 26. Present were Paul Guenther, the orchestra's chairman; Zarin Mehta, the orchestra's president and executive director; and Pak Gil Yon, North Korea's ambassador to the UN. Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of state in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was also supposed to be at the press conference, but sent his apologies, claiming that "responsibilities" in Washington prevented him from attending. Highlights: The Philharmonic will spend two and a half days in North Korea. During that time it will give a single concert in Pyongyang in a hall seating 1,500 people. It will then fly to Seoul, the capital of South Korea, to give a second concert there. Lorin Maazel, the orchestra's music director, will conduct both performances. The Pyongyang program will

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