NK orchestra head visits Seoul
Tours potential venues for Olympic Games performances
North Korea’s Samjiyon Orchestra, which is expected to perform at next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, is in the limelight as its head reportedly visited Seoul on Monday to inspect possible venues.
The seven-member team, led by Hyon Song-wol, the head of North Korea’s Samjiyon Orchestra, arrived in Seoul on Monday from Gangneung after visiting two possible auditoriums in Gangneung, a sub-host city of the games, 260 kilometers east of Seoul, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
North Korea agreed in recent working-level talks with the South to send a 140-member art troupe to hold two concerts, in Seoul and Gangneung, and the seven-member team was scheduled to inspect a few more concert halls in central Seoul on Monday before returning to North Korea.
The Samjiyon Orchestra was founded in January 2009 and mainly performs short and contemporary music. And the performers, mainly women, wear more fashionable clothes.
Compared with another orchestra, the Moranbong Band, which was also established under the guidance of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, the Samjiyon Orchestra is lowprofile. It appeared mostly in reports on special performances as expressions of gratitude on North Korea’s Mother’s Day and Women’s Day.
The Samjiyon Orchestra performed at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater in Pyongyang on March 8, 2017, including songs which eulogized the people’s love and respect for Kim, reported the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of North Korea’s Worker’s Party.
The Samjiyon Orchestra began to introduce some Western music into its performances in 2018. During the 64-minutelong New Year performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater on January 1, it played a medley of songs from animated movies, including Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda, according to a public WeChat account affiliated with the Beijing Youth Daily.
Compared with the Samjiyon Orchestra, the all-female Moranbong Band appears more frequently in news reports.
The Moranbong Band reportedly began in 2012 and most of its members graduated from the Pyongyang University of Music and Dance, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency reported.
Xinhua News Agency Pyongyang reporter Cheng Dayu said that the Moranbong Band usually performs for senior officials and experts in celebration of North Korea’s big events, including the successful launching of missiles, and would also go on tour in North Korea, news.cn reported.
Moranbong Band members usually wear Western-style dresses and add some classic Western songs to their repertoire.
Chinese audiences are more familiar with the Moranbong Band as it came to Beijing in December 2015 for a scheduled performance.
The performance was canceled but no reason was given. However, pictures of the performers and video on the band showing them singing Chinese songs spread on social media.