Master Chorale Hears Sour Note From INS : Music: The government is requiring a job search for the group’s music director to assure that John Currie, a Scot, is not displacing an American.

Wanted: Music Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Sinfonia. Pays $100,000 a year. The job ad ran 38 fine-print lines in the Daily Variety classifieds, less than four weeks before the opening concert of the 26th Master Chorale season.

There is a catch, of course. The position is already filled. Veteran Scottish chorus master and conductor John Currie was appointed in 1985, following the much debated retirement/ouster of Master Chorale founder Roger Wagner.

Actually, there are lots of catches. The Master Chorale wants its director to have a master of arts in music or the equivalent and 10 years experience as the director of “a world-class chorale (sic) organization.” According to the ad, that includes full-time artistic and administrative experience as a choral director, operatic (sic) director and orchestral conductor; “direction of unionized artists”; contract negotiations; arranging choral and orchestral music; and a heavy emphasis on international appearances and “award-winning stature.”

If you thought the job was for you--and the six-figure base annual salary might have encouraged the idea--you had until Oct. 14, 12 days after the ad first ran, to send in your resume and the ad.

So, did the Master Chorale get applicants?

“Indeed we have,” says general manager Maurice Staples. “I really can’t say any more. We’ll be handling this is in an executive committee meeting soon.”

The real kicker in that ad was the last sentence: “If offered position must possess the legal right to accept employment in the U.S.” John Currie, it seems, does not--or rather, will not, if his application for immigrant status is not approved.

The job ad, it turns out, was mandated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, as part of the labor certification process for Currie. This process is designed, according to INS spokesman Duke Austin, to establish to the government’s satisfaction that an American worker is not being displaced by the would-be immigrant.

The regulations are different for performing artists as opposed to administrators, for permanent immigrant visas versus temporary visas. Thus Currie seems to occupy a unique niche locally--for example, the labor certification requirements for Peter Hemmings--the British general director of Los Angeles Music Center Opera, who works here full-time--and Esa-Pekka Salonen--the Finnish music director-designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic--are different because the former is not a performing artist, and the latter will not be here year-round.

Thus the Variety ad, itself a highly irregular event in the usual old-boy network that links searches for major music directors. According to Currie’s attorney, Peter Loewy, the INS suggested Variety and the length of time the ad should run. No other ads have been placed.

Compliance with the regulations leaves Master Chorale officials in a double-speak predicament. On one hand, they express no dissatisfaction with Currie, on the other hand, they are committed to a good-faith effort to find a U.S. replacement for him.

As Marshall Rutter, president of the Master Chorale board of directors, gingerly put it: “As part of John Currie’s immigration process, we must comply with certain regulations. . . . Were it not for this requirement, we would not be engaging in this search. We will do whatever we need to do to comply with the law.”

Currie did not return calls and would consent to talk about the upcoming concert and season only if promised--in writing and in advance--not to be asked about his visa troubles.

Currie’s attorneys do not foresee any ultimate trouble for his application, though processing it through the Department of Labor and then the INS could take from three or four months up to a year.

“We’re not expecting any difficulties,” said Loewy, “but we do have to follow the regulations.”

That, of course, suggests that the Master Chorale does not expect its ad to reveal contenders for the music director post as well qualified--in its mind, at least--as Currie.

The new season begins Oct. 28 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, ironically with an Americana program. Currie’s program includes his own arrangements of spirituals and Stephen Foster songs, as well as music by Copland, Gershwin, Barber, Loewe and early American-Moravian composers, plus new arrangements of choruses by Gordon Getty.