Musicians report on North Korea trip

The School of Music and Center for East Asian Studies at UW–Madison are co-sponsoring “Building Musical Bridges in North Korea,” an informal conversation with two musicians on their recent experience in North Korea.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is Monday, May 3, at 2:30 p.m. in the Memorial Union. Check “Today in the Union” for the exact room location.

Sally Chisholm, professor of viola at the School of Music, and Eugene Purdue, her husband and a violinist, recently returned from a trip to Pyongyang, North Korea, where they performed with three other Americans for the Spring Friendship Art Festival in mid-April.

They will share their impressions and photographs of the people they met and country they saw with students and others from the campus and community.

Chisholm and Purdue were joined on the trip by violinist Young-Nam Kim, artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota; cellist Paula Kosower, a free-lance performer and teacher in Chicago; and pianist Jamie Schmidt, music director of American Girl Place Theatre in New York and an alumnus of the School of Music. The ensemble performed piano quintets by Shostakovich, Dvorak, and Schumann at four concerts during the festival. The trip was sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

During the tour, the Americans intermingled with musicians from nearly 50 other countries, visiting national cultural sites and attending a closing banquet. Chisholm noted in one of her letters sent by fax during the festival, “So, much is different, some is the same. When we play music, we are all at home, and forget about all other issues.”

The gathering will last no more than one hour and tea will be available. For further information, call the School of Music at (608) 263-1900.