About eight months ago, the Pulitzer Prize for music was awarded to Chinese-American Zhou Long for his opera Madame White Snake. Sadly, two weeks ago came the surprising announcement that the Opera Boston, the ensemble that premiered Long’s opera, would be shut down due to a budget deficit in the “tough economic climate.” The news was delivered without warning on December 24^th, shocking Bostonians and opera fans throughout the world.

It seems, however, that the story is not quite over. The Boston Globe reported this week that the decision, through a vote on December 23^rd, was made without the presence of over a third of the board’s seventeen members, some of whom had been optimistic about the company’s ability to overcome its $0.5 million deficit—a fifth of its annual operating budget. Those absent included the company’s general director, Lesley Koenig, who was in California when she received a phone call indicating that her position would be eliminated by 2012.
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It looks like music may finally break across a famous border in the coming months. Chung Myung-whun, maestro of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, announced his intent to start a symphony equally comprised of members from North and South Korea. From a political standpoint, it is not yet known whether this will be possible, but even the potential for such an idea coming to fruition is exciting.

Chung recently met with music figures from North Korea and members of the North Korean State Symphony Orchestra, all of whom were in favor. Chung saw no signs of resistance from the South Korean government, which makes him hopeful about the future of the project. The project has moved into secondary negotiations between the two halves of the peninsula.

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