NEW YORK
When Farah Taslima started composing in the third grade, she never dreamed her music would be performed by the New York Philharmonic by the time she was 12. Even if she had, she never could have imagined it would happen in North Korea.
Four members of the orchestra and four North Korean musicians performed Farah's piece on Wednesday, a day after the 106 members of the Philharmonic performed a concert broadcast to the world.
On Saturday, Farah, her sister and their parents sat in their Manhattan home talking about a congratulatory e-mail from Jon Deak, a Philharmonic double bass player who runs the orchestra's teaching program for child composers. Her little piece, "Serenity Unleashed," was "a big hit" in Pyongyang, he wrote, calling the piece a "tiny gem."
"I was just, like ... I was amazed!" Farah said. "I never thought something like this would happen. It was awesome."
Farah had originally written it for the entire Philharmonic two years ago, and it was played at one of the orchestra's Young People's Concerts at Lincoln Center. But she scaled down the work for a smaller group of musicians -- clarinet, violin, cello and double bass.
It was no small achievement for the daughter of Khondaker Hossain, a NYPD traffic control agent who moved to the United States from Bangladesh 11 years ago when Farah was a baby.
"I didn't know what composing was, but I loved it right off the bat," said Farah, who got her first taste four year ago, after the program visited her school.
