It’s pretty rare to see musicians from a totalitarian communist country play Western pop music. It’s even rarer to see the same musicians play a pop ditty on accordions. Well, today is your lucky day.
A video depicting five students of North Korean’s Kum Song School of Music in Pyongyang playing a-ha’s “Take On Me” recently surfaced on YouTube. Accumulating more than 430,000 views, the video featuring three men and two women was posted by visiting Norwegian artist Morten Traavik, according to the Bangkok Post.
Traavik was so impressed with the musicians that he invited them to play “a mixture of Korean and international hits” at Norway’s Festival Barents Spektakel that runs Feb. 8-12.
So far there has been no word as to whether the North Korean accordion maestros might take Traavik up on his offer. Or that the North Korean government will let them travel to Norway.