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NEW YORK, NY February 26, 2008 —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.