A famous Japanese music conductor visited North Korea, the country’s state-run television said Monday, in what appears to be the North’s efforts to widen non-political ties with the outside world despite mounting tensions over its nuclear test last month.

The (North) Korean Central TV reported that Michiyoshi Inoue, the music conductor of Japan’s Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, and his delegation toured the People’s Theater in Pyongyang on Sunday.

Inoue previously visited the communist country in October 2011 and conducted a concert by the North’s biggest orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The report came just after former NBA star Dennis Rodman toured the isolated country for four days last week, promoting “basketball diplomacy.”

The latest visits from the U.S. and Japan ― North Korea’s two most hated enemy countries ― came despite rising political tensions following the North’s long-range rocket launch in December and underground nuclear test on Feb. 12. (Yonhap News)