More than 2,000 attended the invitation-only concert, although leader Kim Jong-il was absent.
But any sign of the decades of enmity was kept well out of sight as the orchestra opened the performance with both national anthems - the DPRK's first.
"This is first time I have seen the American flag in the DPRK," said one of the minders looking after the largest group of foreign journalists to ever visit the country.
The audience listened with rapt attention to the more than 90-minute performance in the packed East Pyongyang Grand Theatre.
"It was very good," Ri Gun, head of the DPRK Foreign Ministry's American affairs bureau, told reporters after the concert.
During the three-day visit, the DPRK has opened its doors to scores of foreign journalists, allowing them Internet access and almost completely unrestricted international phone lines.
The two countries have no diplomatic ties, are technically still at war and have troops staring each other down across the heavily fortified border that has divided the Korean Peninsula for more than half a century.
Executive director of the New York Philharmonic, Zarin Mehta, said officials from both sides hoped the event would help normalize relations between the long-time foes.
"Nobody would be better served by an opening up than the North Korean people," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a visit to China.
Agencies
(China Daily 02/27/2008 page1)
