The Passion for Music Brings Down Another Wall : Cultural exchange: The American Soviet Youth Orchestra surmounts more than the usual odds to give a harmonious performance.

Tonight and Sunday night one of the most unusual and best orchestras to be heard anywhere will fill the Hollywood Bowl with sound. It is an orchestra of soloists, an all-star team. Unlike most all-star sports teams, however, this one is international in its composition. Moreover, the nations from which it draws--the United States and the Soviet Union--literally do not speak the same language and, until recently, viewed each other as bitter rivals on the world stage.

How can such an orchestra succeed? Mainly because its musicians passionately want it to. These 100 young Americans and Russians, ranging in ages from 17 to 23, know they were selected as the very best instrumentalists from their nations’ combined population of more than half a billion. Organized by Oberlin College in Ohio and the Moscow Conservatory, the American Soviet Youth Orchestra exists to prove that Russians and Americans can cooperate in one of the most complex human organizations of all: a symphony orchestra.

So far they’ve succeeded brilliantly. Last month they brought down the house in Moscow, opened the closed Baltic city of Kaliningrad (formerly Konigsberg) after 45 years of isolation, and brought crowds to their feet in Weimar, Milan, Hamburg and Amsterdam. With tonight’s concert they start an American tour that culminates in performances at Independence Hall in Philadelphia and the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. A special act of Congress was necessary to enable the orchestra to appear at that restricted locale.

After five years of perestroika, is it really still so important to prove that Russians and Americans can cooperate productively? Definitely. American businesses have signed well over 1,000 joint-venture agreements with the Soviets, yet fewer than 100 of these have moved from paper to reality. The experience of the American-Soviet orchestra suggests why most are stymied. Simple telephone, fax and mail communications between here and Moscow often pose daunting challenges. Organizational and management styles in the two countries differ tremendously. While financing on the Soviet side is still totally from the state, the American costs are borne privately by public-spirited corporations, foundations and individuals. This, too, renders the task of meshing the two systems more difficult. And of course, Russian and English are different languages.

A symphony orchestra, however, presents special complexities of its own. American French horn player Nathan Pawelek and his Russian counterpart, Aleksandr Semyonov, have been taught different styles. Russian oboists even cut their reeds differently from American oboists to produce a distinctive national sound. And while American bassists are taught to observe strict precision, Russians tend more to emphasize the grand sweep and emotional impact of their playing. Neither approach is incorrect, but that is not the point. Which is best for the orchestra, and how is the overall sound to be shaped?

The task of mixing these sounds into a single orchestra falls to a Soviet-American team of conductors led by Pavel Kogan of the Soviet State Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, tonight’s conductor. Their talented associates, Catherine Comet of the American Symphony Orchestra and Leonid Nikolayev of the Moscow Conservatory, are among the fastest-rising stars in the international musical firmament. Working through interpreters in what must set an international record for intensive rehearsals, these four conductors have forged 100 soloists into a single artistic organism.

For all its special challenges, this musical joint venture has proven a resounding success. Zubin Mehta, after conducting the orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 1988, stated that “while it exists, this is one of the world’s finest orchestras.”

Tchaikovsky once said that every great orchestra is a republic of its own. The “republic” that will step out on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl tonight is neither Russian nor American but something better than either country could produce alone. It combines the Russians’ special strengths in the strings with the Americans’ virtuosity in winds and brass.

And this, too, is part of the message. Cooperating across 7,000 miles, two languages and two cultures is far more demanding than working with people in one’s own city or region. But it is possible, and the results can even be dazzling. The American Soviet Youth Orchestra proves it.