New York, NY –
The historic NY Philharmonic concert in North Korea remains the topic of conversation in classical music circles and diplomatic coffee klatches.
REPORTER: WNYC’s John Schaeffer was there and says as the concert ended the audience just continued applauding until the musicians got up to leave the stage.
SCHAEFFER: As they did that members of the audience started waiving good-by, and the musicians started waiving back. And you could see that some of them were getting kinda misty eyed.
REPORTER: But the British cultural critic, Norman Lebrecht, says the NY Philharmonic is just being used.
LEBRECHT: Let's not be deluded by what went on there. Every Korean who was in that audience was either hand picked or pre-approved by the party. Nobody was there casually, nobody was there because they were a music lover, they were there because they were part of a state enterprise and this is a totalitarian state. The state itself and its leader Kim will be proclaiming this as a great victory.
Karen Frillmann, WNYC’s Managing Editor for News works on the many and varied stories that emerge from the microphones and recorders of the reporting staff. She got her start in broadcast journalism at WNYC when it was still New York City’s Municipal Broadcasting System. As a producer she launched “Senior Edition” which helped establish WNYC as a destination for talk and public affairs.
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