Sing-Song Diplomacy

Surely George Gershwin never dreamed that "An American in Paris" would be performed by Americans in Pyongyang. Nevertheless, the New York Philharmonic is off to North Korea this week to play some Gershwin, Dvorak's "New World" S ymphony and (perhaps fittingly) a bit of Wagner for a country that President Bush called part of the "axis of evil." Here's a look at musical diplomacy over the past half-century.

1956: The State Department sends trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie -- master of a uniquely American art form -- on a spin through the Middle East and the Balkans. He comes home to a country where he can't sit at a lunch counter with whites.

1956 : Greeted by Russia's finest musicians, the Boston Symphony Orchestra becomes the first major American ensemble to play in the Soviet Union. The harmony fades quickly; less than two months later, Soviet tanks crush the Hungarian uprising.

1957: Jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman tours Asia. He's introduced in Japan as "the great Benjamin Goodman," but he does better in Burma: "Your music makes my toes tickle!" former prime minister U Nu tells him.

1958: At age 23, Texan pianist Van Cliburn stuns the classical music world -- and boosts Americans' Cold War morale -- by winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. The judges, who could be shipped to Siberia for the wrong decision, unanimously award him first prize -- but only after Premier Nikita Khrushchev gives his approval.

1958: The New York Philharmonic tours Latin America. A Lima audience gives "The Star-Spangled Banner" a standing ovation -- days after protesters threw stones at Vice President Richard Nixon during his own "goodwill" visit to Peru.

1962: Benny Goodman tours the Soviet Union. "I am not a jazz fan," Khrushchev tells him. "I like real music. I don't understand jazz. I don't mean just yours. I don't even understand our own."

1973 : A year after President Nixon's visit to China, the Philadelphia Orchestra becomes the first American ensemble to play there since the communist revolution. The musicians are the first U.S. citizens most Chinese have seen in 25 years. They perform the Yellow River Concerto, a piece composed in the finest communist tradition -- by committee.

1990: Pink Floyd's Roger Waters stages the band's classic rock opera "The Wall" in a free Berlin. Three years earlier, Waters had said he would do a live performance only once the Berlin Wall came down -- an event he didn't expect to happen for another decade. The show includes 600 performers and crew and a wall made of 2,500 Styrofoam bricks.

2007: The State Department sends the Grammy-winning funk band Ozomatli to the Middle East. They're not obvious ambassadors for the Bush administration: The band has played at rallies opposing the Iraq war.