America’s oldest symphony orchestra – and many would say its best – is planning a concert in North Korea’s capital in February. This marks a welcome opportunity for both countries to trade smiles instead of glares and for one of the world’s most isolated nations to enter the world community.

The New York Philharmonic’s president joined North Korea’s representative to the United Nations, Pak Gil Yon, on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall last week to make the formal announcement that the orchestra had accepted an invitation from North Korea.

Orchestras have long figured in diplomacy. The Philadelphia Orchestra played in China shortly after President Nixon’s visit in l972, and the Boston Symphony in 1956 traveled to the Soviet Union.

Ambassador Christopher Hill, who negotiated the treaty that calls for North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and U.S. economic aid, had been discussing possible cultural relations with Pyongyang officials. The invitation came four months ago. Discussions then led to agreement on the orchestra’s conditions that it could play “The Star-Spangled Banner,” that the concert would be broadcast nationwide, that foreign journalists could attend, and that the eight Korean members of the philharmonic would not encounter difficulties.

Agreement on the concert is part of an almost 180-degree reversal of Bush administration policy. President Bush started his first term by calling North Korea part of an “axis of evil” and saying that he “loathed” its leader, Kim Jong-il. But in addition to backing the philharmonic’s acceptance of Pyongyang’s invitation, he sent a personal, hand-signed note to Mr. Kim raising the possibility of normalized relations but reminding him of his promise to disclose all nuclear programs by the end of this year.

The administration is moving cautiously. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was pleased about the concert tour but said denuclearization was the priority and that North Korea was “not a regime the United States is prepared to engage broadly.”

Outrage from hardliners was to be expected. John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the orchestra’s visit “reduces the philharmonic to the level of doing ping-pong diplomacy with a bunch of terrorists.”

But Donald Gregg, a CIA veteran, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and now chairman of the Korea society, had a good answer to the naysayers: “Those who oppose it are saying that the North Koreans don’t deserve to hear this [music]. But that confuses what they deserve and what they need. A country that has been as isolated as North Korea as a great need to become acquainted with the wonders of the free world.”