An anticipated project that aimed to have both South and North Korean musicians perform together is not likely to happen this summer, maestro Chung Myung-whun, a South Korean conductor, said in Seoul on Thursday.

“We had hoped North Korean musicians would take part in the annual performance by the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra this summer. But until now we haven’t heard a word from them,” Chung told reporters at UNICEF Korea’s head office.

Instead, he will hold a charity concert at the Amphitheater of Yonsei University on Aug. 4 to raise funds to help starving North Korean children. Proceeds of the concert will go directly to UNICEF and will be used to buy and send vaccines, nutrition powders and water purifiers.

“We are still waiting for the North’s response. I honestly don’t know when we’ll get an answer. But I want to see how many people share the same beliefs that I have ― that we, human beings, have the responsibility to save children and that we are, after all, one family,” Chung said.

The internationally renowned conductor had previously said that he had suggested to the North Korean authorities that musicians from the North join in the annual performance by the pan-Asia orchestra he founded 16 years ago to bring together Asian musicians from across the region.

The 75-member orchestra will perform twice in Japan ― in Fukuoka on Aug. 1 and in Tokyo on Aug. 2 with a program featuring Schubert Symphony No. 8 “Unfinished” and Beethoven Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.”

In Korea, the orchestra will perform Beethoven Symphony No. 9 “Choral,” in order to deliver their hopes of meeting North Korean musicians in the near future, he added.

Chung’s hopes for the North Korean participation were heightend after he led a joint North Korean and French orchestra in a landmark concert in Paris in March. Under the baton of Chung, North Korea’s Unhasu Orchestra and Radio France Philharmonic played at Paris’ Salle Pleyel music hall, drawing attention from around the world for its symbolic significance in bridging the West and the isolated East Asian nation through music.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)