Seoul, South Korea ? The New York Philharmonic built a musical bridge between the two Koreas on Thursday, reprising its emotional performance of the Korean folk tune “Arirang” in the South Korean capital after its unprecedented concert in Pyongyang.

The audience of South Koreans, who had been able to watch the North Korean concert on Tuesday via a live television feed, gave the American orchestra ovation after ovation following its program and two encores – yearning for the song beloved by all Koreans to be played here on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone.

When Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel took the stage for “Arirang” and raised his arms to start the piece, the audience immediately hushed in anticipation. Thunderous applause and cries of “Bravo!” rang out from the crowd of some 2,500 at the Seoul Arts Center that jumped to its feet after the music ended.

“There’s no sides – there’s no North and South in ‘Arirang,'” Maazel told The Associated Press after the triumphant performance that brought the orchestra’s trip full-circle. “It’s a melody for everybody. All these artificially created barriers fade away.”

The orchestra began as they did in Pyongyang with the national anthems of the host country and the United States.

South Korea’s new President Lee Myung-bak, sworn in Monday, did not attend the concert. On Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il also was not seen in the audience.

The orchestra featured South Korean pianist Son Yeol-eum in Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. They finished the regular program with Beethoven’s inspiring Fifth Symphony, which starts with the most famous four notes in music that signal fate knocking.

“We are the same people in the same land, but different issues separate us from each other,” said Kim Kyung-rok, 34, an information technology worker in the audience, speaking of the peninsula that remains split by the world’s last Cold War frontier. “It’s very sad because there is North Korea and South Korea, but the New York Philharmonic orchestra will make (us) be one.”

“I hope that music will turn Kim Jong Il’s ways,” said Song Ja, 73, former president of Seoul’s Yonsei University.