NY Philharmonic builds musical bridge between 2 Koreas with folk song Â’ArirangÂ’

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This article was published 28/02/2008 (6759 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SEOUL, South Korea – The New York Philharmonic built a musical bridge between the two Koreas on Thursday, reprising its emotional performance of the Korean folk tune “Arirang” in the South Korean capital after its unprecedented concert in Pyongyang.

The audience of South Koreans, who had been able to watch the North Korean concert on Tuesday via a live television feed, gave the American orchestra ovation after ovation following its program and two encores – yearning for the song beloved by all Koreans to be played here on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone.

When Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel took the stage for “Arirang” and raised his arms to start the piece, the audience immediately hushed in anticipation. Thunderous applause and cries of “Bravo!” rang out from the crowd of some 2,500 at the Seoul Arts Center that jumped to its feet after the music ended.

“There’s no sides – there’s no North and South in ‘Arirang,”‘ Maazel told The Associated Press after the triumphant performance that brought the orchestra’s trip full-circle. “It’s a melody for everybody. All these artificially created barriers fade away.”

“Seventy million Koreans love you,” Park Sam-koo, chairman of the Kumho-Asiana Culture Foundation, told Maazel backstage, referring to the combined population of both Koreas.

The orchestra began as they did in Pyongyang with the national anthems of the host country and the United States.

South Korea’s new President Lee Myung-bak, sworn in Monday, did not attend the concert. On Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il also was not seen in the audience.

The orchestra featured South Korean pianist Son Yeol-eum in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2. They finished the regular program with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, the sombre piece with the most famous four notes in music.

After two encores, the orchestra gave the crowd what it had been waiting for with “Arirang” – an unofficial anthem for reunification that is regularly played at friendly events between the rival Koreas.

“We are the same people in the same land, but different issues separate us from each other,” said Kim Kyung-rok, 34, an information technology worker in the audience, speaking of the peninsula that remains split by the world’s last Cold War frontier.

“It’s very sad because there is North Korea and South Korea, but the New York Philharmonic orchestra will make (us) be one.”

“It was an unforgettable moment,” Andre Kim, South Korea’s most famous fashion designer, said of the Pyongyang concert. “Very soon I do wish there would be diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea, and that will help bring peace in all the world.”

“I hope that music will turn Kim Jong Il’s ways,” said Song Ja, 73, former president of Seoul’s Yonsei University.

Although the U.S. anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played by the Philharmonic in North Korea – and the U.S. and North Korean flags stood on opposite sides of the stage – Song noted the North has refused so far to allow the South Korean national anthem to be played or its flag flown at a scheduled World Cup soccer qualifying match next month in Pyongyang.

“Still, they are not opening their minds,” he said.

The North remains locked in long-running negotiations with the United States and other countries over its nuclear weapons program, which hit its latest impasse this year after Washington said Pyongyang failed to give a full declaration of its long history of seeking to build atomic bombs.

Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, said the Pyongyang concert did not “change the system and the fundamental nature of the problems we’re facing.”

Still, Vershbow said ahead of the Philharmonic’s Seoul performance that its visit to Pyongyang could show isolated North Koreans “the possibility of a different relationship with the United States.”

“Through music, we were able to make some kind of connection with North Korea,” he said.