DPRK Forum

(Hat Tip and translation hapo) Original story here

The Avanti Politiikka! concert is breaking barriers again. Compositions by the North Korean leader are performed for the first time in Finland.

Songs that tell about the late leader Kim Il-Sung and the current leader Kim Jong-Il can be found plentifully in the Internet, but their own music has rarely been heard outside North Korea, if ever.

It required a lot of work to find any notes for the concert.

- Usually it’s a routine to get notes. However, finding North Korean compositions became a small advanture, tells clarinette performer Kari Kriikku about the quest that took a year.

He doesn’t want to reveal everything about the matter before the concert.

- It was a fairly new situation for the Koreans. I don’t know if anyone has thought of asking them for notes before.

I’ve multiple times been thinking whether works by known persons like Franklin D. Roosevelt would be shared without problems if they had composed music, thinks Kriikku.

Kriikku started his quest for compositions by the North Korean leaders after he heard they had renewed opera and classical music. The works performed in the Avanti Politiikka! concert are Asian basic works by their nature.

- The songs that are performed are local, simple folk music. The interesting thing is that they’re like from a psalm book.

They have a melody, tone signs and lyrics, Kriikku describes.

- We have the information we have received from these songs. They’re intended for average singers. By their type they’re verse songs, in the other of which the important of the mother is and then they tell in the end how important the leader is, says Kriikku.

The songs are performed in Korean. The text is lyrical language that can be understood in many ways. Translating it into English would have required more time than the arrangers of the concert had.

More information about Kim Jong-Il’s interest in also other areas like making movies can be found at the website IMDd (sic).

Avanti! performs the music by the leaders on 25th November in the grand Avanti Politiikka! concert at the Old Student House. The programming also has music by Henry VIII, Ivan IV of Russia and Frederick II of Prussia.

There’s also music that has burning ideas in the pace of Haydn and Sibelius.

11/25/2007 at 7 PM, Old Student House, Helsinki. Chamber orchestra Avanti, lead by Hannu Lintu; the choirs Otaniemen Kaiku, Dominante and Murtosointu; Petri Bäckström, narrator; Pasi Heikura, announcer

Tickets 20/10 euros

Thanks for the translation, and this is indeed some interesting news. I have never seen North Korean songs played elsewhere to my knowledge. I wonder if there would be footage later on somewhere.