The New York Philharmonic is thinking of visiting North Korea next year and that has caused a great deal of tut-tutting from the nuke ’em, don’t serenade ’em crowd. The conservative position was captured rather nicely by Terry Teachout in a piece called Serenading a Tyrant in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday:
“Why … is the New York Philharmonic giving serious consideration to playing in Pyongyang, the capital of what may be the world’s most viciously repressive dictatorship?” he wrote. “Attendance at the Philharmonic’s concerts will be carefully controlled. And of course any concert in Pyongyang can’t possibly reach the North Korean people, because only the elite, for the most part, are allowed into Pyongyang.”
Here’s my thought. If a goodwill visit by an American orchestra opens the door for even a single sliver of sunlight to shine on one of the planet’s darkest lands, it will be worth it…even if it means letting the world’s most obnoxious dictator claim a propaganda victory. Music has survived a lot worse.
What do you think? Or, if you don’t want to think, go over to the New Yorker and read Alex’s brilliant piece on Philip Glass. (Somehow that didn’t come out right.)
“…single sliver of sunlight to shine on one of the planet’s darkest lands…”
I wouldn’t have a problem with the NYP playing in North Korea if it meant that the North Korean oppressed were able to actually see and hear the concert.
This concert will be probably only be available to Kim Jong Il’s crowd. I seriously doubt there will be a “commoner” presence at this event.
History has only proven that Kim Jong Il is only concerned with Kim Jong Il. No one else. (The picture provided on Terry Teachout’s page from the DoD should be ample evidence).
Does anyone know the story of Shin Sang Ok, the South Korean film maker who was abducted to help boost the North Korean film industry? I don’t think anyone from the NYP will be abducted, but the point is that while the NYP’s intentions are humanitarian and whole, they will return sadly disappointed to the US, knowing only that they served the will of Kim Jong Il, and not the people of North Korea.
Miss Mussel thinks that she agrees with you completely. A less succinct version of her thoughts is here.
I don’t think Allen’s piece in the Times is of the “nuke ’em” variety – he comes across pretty even-handed and well thought out. Certainly he’s more liberal (on this matter) than Teachout’s under-no-circumstances position.
Though I tend to agree with Teachout. Unless the Phil is getting paid handsomely by Dear Leader for their efforts, I don’t much see how any good could come of it.
We should also recall that the opening of the People’s Republic of China (pre-‘Nixon in China’ version) involved steps toward both musical and ping-pong diplomacy.
Lou Harrison was, in fact, asked to be part of a cultural exchange program of worker/musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area to ‘Mainland China’ in 1975/76; which was being negotiated, I recall, through back-channel contacts in Ottawa, Canada.
The worker/musician exchange program was subsequently aborted, and classical music diplomacy was trumped by ping-pong diplomacy, and later by Richard Nixon and entourage.
(I also recall that Lou Harrison was very adamant that his companion, fellow worker/(amateur) musician, Bill Colvig, be allowed to accompany him on this cultural exchange program. This was problematic, at the time, I recall.)
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When one Soviet Union Orchestra visited Washington, D.C.’s DAR Constitution Hall in the late 1960s, Jewish protesters demonstrated at the opening by blowing the shofar and throwing down leaflets from the balconies. Such demonstrations probably occured in other U.S. cities at the time, as well. [Sir Edward Elgar’s oratorio, The Apostles, Op. 49, calls for a shofar in the orchestra.]
Jerry,
I haven’t read the piece on Philip Glass yet, but my memory seems to recall Louis Armstrong visiting, with as much regularity as was possible, the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. He was hailed as an “Ambassador”.
Can you work up a nice arrangement of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans” for the WSJ crowd?