Lorin Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic, expresses in today's WSJ, his personal justification for the orchestra's upcoming performance in North Korea. It is a deeply personal statement which concludes:

I composed an opera to a text drawn from George Orwell's scathing indictment of tyranny, "1984." I spent years of my life wrestling with its horrors: brutal torture, systematic injustice, contempt for any human dignity. One of the subtle currents flowing through the novel is the power of music, notwithstanding its official suppression by Big Brother, to nurture and inspire the populace in the face of oppression. My experience with Orwell only affirms the profoundly ethical role I believe the arts and artists have to play.I write from Asia, where we are on the second leg of the Philharmonic's tour, after three concerts in Taiwan. The tensions surrounding the history of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China are slowly fading. What a different world it is here now from the one I knew 40 years back, when the sound of saber-rattling frightened us all.A similar transformation may one day come to pass in Korea, where many believe the time has come to take the tiny steps that must be taken to lessen tensions, forging small accommodations and leading perhaps to a lasting reconciliation. We all wish them well on their way, long and arduous as it may be