U.S. Concert Masters Play In North Korea

The New York Philharmonic brought musical diplomacy to the heart of communist North Korea in a historic concert Tuesday, playing a program highlighting American music in the nuclear-armed country that considers the U.S. its mortal enemy.

The Philharmonic, which began with North Korea's national anthem, "Patriotic Song," is the first major American cultural group to perform in the country and brought the largest-ever delegation from the United States to visit its longtime foe.

The unprecedented concert represents a warming in relations of the nations that remain locked in negotiations over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.

After performing North Korea's national song, the Philharmonic followed with "The Star-Spangled Banner." The audience stood during both anthems and held their applause until both had been performed.

Reporting from Pyongyang, CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen said it was likely the first time most North Koreans had heard America's patriotic song.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il did not appear to be in attendance at the 2,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theater.

"My colleagues of the New York Philharmonic and I are very pleased to play in this fine hall," music director Lorin Maazel said in English at one point. He then told the audience to "Please have a good time" in Korean.

North Koreans in attendance - men in suits and women in colorful traditional Korean dresses - fixed their eyes on the stage. Many wore badges bearing a portrait of national founder Kim Il Sung, father of current leader Kim Jong Il.

Seen in the audience was Ri Gun, North Korea's deputy nuclear negotiator. Sitting next to him was William Perry, a former U.S. secretary of defense.

When the concert ended, with a final encore of the Korean traditional folk song "Arirang" - beloved in both the North and South - the Philharmonic received a five-minute standing ovation, with many members of the audience cheering, whistling and waving to the beaming orchestra.

Ahead of the performance in the isolated North, Maazel said the orchestra has been a force for change in the past, noting that its 1959 performance in the Soviet Union was part of that country's opening up to the outside world that eventually resulted in the downfall of the regime.

"The Soviets didn't realize that it was a two-edged sword, because by doing so they allowed people from outside the country to interact with their own people, and to have an influence," he told journalists in Pyongyang. "It was so long lasting that eventually the people in power found themselves out of power."

When asked if he thought the same could happen in North Korea, he said: "There are no parallels in history; there are similarities."

While the Soviets were viewed as a threatening superpower, Maazel said the Korean peninsula has a different role in the world because of its small size.

"To draw a parallel would be to do a disservice to the people who live here and who are trying through their art and through their culture to reach out to other human beings, to make a better world for themselves and for all of us," he said.

Still, he said the concert could be a small step that he hoped would spark other cultural and social exchanges.

"We are very humble. We are here to make music," he said.

The U.S. and North Korean flags were displayed at opposite ends of the stage.

Following the brief prelude to Act 3 of Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin," the orchestra moved on to pieces that highlighted the ensemble's importance in American music.

That included two pieces that premiered with the Philharmonic: Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 - popularly known as the "New World Symphony," written while the Czech composer lived in the United States and was inspired by native American themes - and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris."

"Someday a composer may write a work entitled 'Americans in Pyongyang,"' Maazel said in introducing the Gershwin work, a remark which drew warm applause from the audience.

Reaction to the concert was positive.

"I think the concert is just a wonderful gesture for greater understanding between the peoples of the U.S. and the DPRK," said audience member Pak Chol, using the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

The concert was "not only just an art performance" but also embodied the "good feelings of the Americans toward citizens of the DPRK," said Pak, counselor with the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee.

On the streets of Pyongyang earlier Tuesday, North Koreans said they were aware of the orchestra's visit. But the trip was not yet front-page news here: A picture of the orchestra's airport arrival to the North Korean capital was printed inside the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper, along with brief stories on the event.

Petersen said that during a tour of Pyongyang for journalists, most North Koreans barely seemed to notice the presence of the note-and-photo-taking mass on the streets. "No waves, not even a smile. It felt like they were afraid of us," Petersen commented on CBS' The Early Show.

At the Grand People's Study House, the country's largest library said to include 30 million volumes, journalists saw North Koreans looking up information in an electronic catalog, reading industrial journals and attending language and science classes.

In one boisterous classroom, teacher Jeon Hyun Mi led students through an English lesson using materials from "Family Album U.S.A.," an American-designed program based on the life of a fictional family.

As she questioned them about details of the characters, students enthusiastically shouted out "yes" or "no" and brief replies.

The teacher said she welcomed the orchestra's visit as a way to bring the people of the two countries together, implying it was only the governments that harbored differences.

"We think we have good relations, people are very close," Jeon said. The trip "is a gesture of improvement" in ties between the U.S. and the North.

Ri Myong Sop, an electrical engineering student walking on the city's streets outside a subway station, repeated the country's official line that the United States started the Korean War, which ended in a 1953 cease-fire that has never been replaced with a peace treaty.

"At present, if the United States takes the decision of a more encouraging policy toward the North then we can embrace the United States," he said.

The U.S. government has supported the Philharmonic's visit, agreed upon last year when efforts to end the North's nuclear weapons program were making unprecedented progress. The country shut down its main nuclear reactor in July and has started disabling it so it cannot easily be restarted under the eyes of U.S. and international experts.

However, disarmament has stalled this year because of what Washington says is North Korea's failure to give a full declaration of its atomic programs to be dismantled, as Pyongyang promised to do under an international agreement.

"At the end of the day this is a concert," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday, adding that the New York Philharmonic's visit "is not going to necessarily change the behavior of a regime that is not forthcoming" on its nuclear program.