PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA INVITED TO PERFORM 4 CONCERTS IN U.S.S.R

The Soviet Union has invited the Philadelphia Orchestra to perform four concerts there this spring, the first American orchestra to receive an invitation since the Geneva summit.

President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a series of cultural accords at the summit in November enabling the countries to exchange cultural events for the first time since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Judith Karp, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Orchestra, said the orchestra under music director Riccardo Muti had been invited to play two concerts in Moscow and two in Leningrad in May and June.

The Philadelphians last played in the Soviet Union in 1958 under the late Eugene Ormandy. That tour, the first time an American orchestra performed in the Soviet Union, was sponsored by the State Department as part of a cultural exchange program negotiated between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev.

Karp said the trip would depend on shuffling the orchestra’s schedule and on raising the money.

“We are currently commited to a North American tour during the period in which they invited us to come,” Karp said. She said officials would consider asking the Soviets to change the dates. Karp said it could cost up to $900,000 to perform, including the cost of canceling a week of scheduled performances in the United States.

Another American musician scheduled to play in Moscow in the spring is pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who was born in the Soviet Union. His scheduled April performance will be his first appearance there since he left in 1925.