The New York Philharmonic could score a diplomatic breakthrough with a performance in North Korea.

Maestro Lorin Maazel conducts the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2006 in New York.
(Stephen Chernin/Associated Press)

Philharmonic president Zarin Mehta and public relations director Eric Latzky are expected to arrive in North Korea Saturday to make arrangements for a concert that could take place as soon as February.

They are operating with the blessing of the U.S. State Department, which began to look more favourably on the isolated nation after North Korea shut down its sole operating reactor in July.

The North Koreans first broached the idea of a concert in Pyongyang with an invitation, relayed through a Korean cultural agent in California, in August.

A North Korean diplomat from the country's United Nations mission visited orchestra officials a month later and later the philharmonic received a formal letter from the Ministry of Culture. 

"It would be kind of extraordinary for us to play there," Mehta told the New York Times.

"If this venture helps in furthering what's been going on in the last couple of weeks in terms of the normalizing of relationships … that would become a wonderful thing for the world."

The thaw in relations between the U.S. and North Korea continued this week when Pyongyang agreed to provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its main reactor by Dec. 31.

The representatives from the highly acclaimed philharmonic will explore venues, hotel arrangements and other details for the 106-member orchestra while in the capital this weekend.

"It's obviously not routine," Mehta said. "It's a country that none of us have ever dreamed of going to. The next three or four days are going to be very eye-opening for us."

The visit would likely come at the end of the orchestra's planned tour in China, from Feb. 7 to 25.

The New York Philharmonic has been well received in South Korea, and North Koreans have been exposed to Western classical music.

Sports and university exchanges with North Korea are on the increase and cultural exchanges are often incorporated in efforts to build ties between estranged nations.

In an earlier trip with diplomatic ramifications, the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein went to the Soviet Union in the 1950s.