Word: pyongyang
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...afternoon, we had passed a poster of a giant fist slamming a helpless little Uncle Sam that read, "Smash the USA." When he introduced George Gershwin's An American in Paris, Maazel told the audience that perhaps one day another composer would write a symphony entitled "An American in Pyongyang." Whatever ambivalence the North Korean audience may have felt until then evaporated. The crowd laughed - and applauded long and hard. "From that point on," Maazel later said, "you could just feel the warmth in the room...
...Music Begin The swings between humor and pathos ended that evening at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, an ornate, three-tier orchestra hall that had been recently fitted with a new acoustic shell around the stage to make the hall worthy of the New York Philharmonic. Some 1,400 people were present - mostly North Koreans, and a few dozen foreign diplomats and businesspeople. Who the North Koreans were, exactly, was maddeningly vague. Maazel had said before the concert that he hoped "ordinary" Koreans would be among those attending, but no one from the orchestra had a clue who the tickets...
...entire group was deposited in a 47-story hotel that sits on Pyongyang's Daedong River. It is one of two hotels in Pyongyang that foreigners stay in. The other one is on a central street, with plenty of pedestrian traffic outside and even some vehicular traffic. It's possible to walk out the front door, see people and try to talk to them. Not from our hotel. It's isolated and difficult to walk to or from. And that was the point. There hadn't been this many Americans on North Korean soil since the Korean...
...Mind Your Minder While the orchestra rehearsed, the government minders took the 80 mostly American journalists on a whirlwind tour of Pyongyang. Kim Il Sung, the late Great Leader, is still the dominant figure in the intense cult of personality that is North Korea. His image is everywhere, most prominently on an overlook where a gigantic bronze statue stands in front of the Korean Revolution Museum. After we boarded the buses, a group of about 40 North Koreans walked up and made their way to the statue. We were just about to leave, but again there was a journalists' revolt...
...dinner after the concert, an emotionally spent New York Philharmonic president Zarin Mehta said, "I'm over the moon right now." He said he had "misted up" at the playing of the U.S. national anthem in Pyongyang, and that the emotional power of the evening only grew from there. He was right. Several hard-bitten journalists, myself included, choked up at various points, and several orchestra members spoke of breaking down in the wings after leaving the stage as the audience continued to stand and applaud. U.S. diplomats, current and former, were euphoric. Donald Gregg, a former State Department...