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The New York Philharmonic will try a dash of Dvorak diplomacy with an unprecedented concert in North Korea next week, hoping America's oldest orchestra can bring a change of tune to one of the world's most isolated countries.
US government officials may be expecting some rare harmony between the bitter foes, but analysts say they should brace for a different note from the North's propaganda machine, which is likely to bill the concert as homage to its jump-suited leader Kim Jong-il.
The New York Philharmonic arrives in Pyongyang on Monday for a stay of about 48 hours which will culminate in a concert on Tuesday featuring the works of Antonin Dvorak and George Gershwin played before the hermit state's elite members.
"If we are gradually to improve US-Korean relations, such events have the potential to nudge open a door that has been closed too long," the orchestra's music director Lorin Maazel wrote in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.
The orchestra has tried to break the ice between Cold War foes before with a celebrated visit to the Soviet Union in 1959.
The Bush administration has called the North an outpost of tyranny and part of an axis of evil.
The North's official media say Washington is bent on toppling its leaders and igniting nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.
Live broadcast
It will be the biggest group from the United States since North Korea seized the US spy ship Pueblo 40 years ago and held its 82 crew members for months.
The concert will be broadcast live in both North and South Korea.
One person who will be watching intently is Kim Cheol-woong, a classically trained piano prodigy from North Korea who defected to the South to pursue his passion for Western music.
"The message that will be delivered to North Koreans is: 'the US is kneeling to our Dear Leader Kim Jong-il'," he said.
But pianist Kim believes the concert does have the potential to change hearts and minds in the reclusive state.
Access to foreign music is banned and under normal circumstances, listening to the works that will be played at Tuesday's concert could land a person in prison, he added.
The chief US envoy in international talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme said he hopes this concert will help draw the hermit state out of its shell.
"Sometimes the North Koreans don't like our words," Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul earlier this week.
"Maybe they will like our music".
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