Orchestra to Tour Europe

The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) will take its first ever tour of Europe this summer.

The 11-concert tour will include performances at Cambridge University, the U.S. embassy in Moscow and Southwark Cathedral in London, site of John Harvard's baptism.

One of the performances will be broadcast on BBC Radio, said James D. Yannatos, senior lecturer on Music and director of the HRO.

Yannatos added that the orchestra's last major tour took it to Berlin for two weeks in 1978 for a festival of student orchestras.

"Ideally, I'd like to see a tour every four years so each college generation could have a shot at such an adventure," said Yannatos, adding that the 1978 performance greatly enhanced the orchestra's reputation.

"The basic purpose of the tour is to make trends and to share music," said HRO tour manager Michael B Potter '84. "Given the international situation the way it is today, the Soviet portion of the trip is the most important," he committed.

Potter said that he began organizing the trip a year and a halt ago by mailing letters to concert organizers in Europe informing them that the group would be in Europe over the summer. The group then received a number of invitations to play, he said.

Potter plans to spend spring vacation on a "fact-finding mission" in Europe and the Soviet Union, he said, adding, "I'll be checking out housing arrangements and concert halls and meeting with people who've been helping us along the way."

"We like to cast things in iron; when arrangements are made by mail or even by phone there's always the possibility of a misunderstanding," said Jonathan A Epstein '84, president of the 95-member orchestra.

Each orchestra member will contribute approximately half the cost of his trip, with the remainder of the funds coming from a number of other sources including fund-raising concerts, donations from alumni, grants from the Boston Globe and the Harvard Musical Association.

"We've been pretty successful so far," said Maryellea H. Gleanson, an Extension School student and the director of development for HRO, adding that the orchestra has thus for raised $115,000 of the necessary $150,000.