BlogBack: Greg Sandow on NY Philharmonic’s North Korean Visit

Music critic and composer Greg Sandow (who blogged here about the NY Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea) responds to my NY Philharmonic’s Korean Overture: An American in Pyongyang:
I’m on your side, of course: I think they should go. But I don’t have any high-minded goals in mind for the visit. I guess I just hope that some of the North Korean elite will have sparks lit in their hearts.
I doubt the general public would ever be admitted. The general North Korean public isn’t even allowed in Pyongyang. I doubt they’d change that policy just for the Philharmonic. A radio broadcast would be wonderful, but I’d look carefully at the conditions. Most North Koreans have radios that can tune to only one station. Maybe the elite have radios with more choices, so I’d want to be sure the broadcast goes out on the general channel.
The program doesn’t surprise me. If we don’t like it, we should simply remember that the orchestra has been tailoring programs for its New York audience for decades, so why should we be surprised if they tailor a program for the North Koreans?
But [Elliot] Carter? [I had suggested in my above-linked post that the Philharmonic should include a difficult contemporary composer, like Carter, on its program.] I couldn’t agree with that. I doubt anyone in North Korea is equipped even to begin to understand what Carter is doing, so the performance would seem like a blast of incomprehensible and totally unfamiliar noise.
Besides, Carter doesn’t represent current American music. I’d think they should play John Adams or Steve Reich.