For Release: 2008-05-12 11:43:00
Dvorák, Gershwin and Wagner take center stage when the New York Philharmonic’s historic concert in North Korea’s capital city, Pyongyang, premieres on Great Performances. “The New York Philharmonic: Live From North Korea” airs Thursday May 29 at 9/8 p.m. CT on KET1. Music director Lorin Maazel leads the orchestra in Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”; Gershwin’s An American in Paris; and Wagner’s Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin.Opening with the national anthems of North Korea and the United States, the orchestra performs in the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, with behind-the-scenes coverage by Bob Woodruff of ABC News. The network had rare access inside the closed society of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where contact with the outside world is completely forbidden to citizens. The New York Philharmonic visit marks the first by American artists there.
“I have always felt that music is a powerful language,” says Maestro Maazel, “in which those of us who are humane and intelligent can speak to each other, in defiance of political and cultural boundaries.”
The concert is the centerpiece of a 48-hour visit to Pyongyang by the Philharmonic. The group is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world. Lorin Maazel was named music director in 2002.
Great Performances “The New York Philharmonic: Live From North Korea” is produced by WNET/New York. More information about KET programming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.
Contact: Ellen Soileau
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