HLU Seeks Talk By Shostakovitch

Liberal Union members sent Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovitch a telegram yesterday inviting him to speak in Cambridge on "Trends in Modern Music," Herbert S. Levine '50, HLU president, announced last night.

The HLU also sent a copy of the invitation to Soviet Ambassador Alexander Panyushkin.

Levine stated that the HLU fees "the need for international exchange of culture and ideas by the world's artists and intellectuals without such an interchange being made a vehicle for partisan political maneuvoring." Shostakovitch has been attending the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, alleged to be "pro-Soviet."

Levine also stated that Nicholas Slonimski, Boston music critic, had agreed to speak on the same platform with Shostakovitch. Howard Hanson, American composer and president of the Eastman School of Music, has tentatively accepted an HLU invitation to speak if Shostakovitch comes between Wednesday, April 20, and Sunday, April 24.