U.S. FIRM TO RECORD IN MOSCOW

In the summer of 1984, record producer/pianist Lincoln Mayorga knew that if a truly high-quality record of a Soviet orchestra was going to be made, a mountain of recording technology--tape machines, microphones, consoles and the like--would have to be utilized.

But bringing the orchestra to that mountain in this country would be impractical, so Mayorga and executives of the small but highly respected Sheffield Records label decided to bring the mountain to Moscow, with engineers and an American conductor, Lawrence Leighton Smith, in tow.

Mayorga, Smith, two engineers and other assorted personnel--and more than a ton of recording gear--were to leave for a 10-day recording stint today that will mark the first time that an American conductor will conduct a Soviet orchestra for the microphones.

Smith will direct the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in an all-Russian program of works by Glazunov, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. His Soviet counterpart, Dmitri Kitaenko--music director of the Russian orchestra--will conduct pieces by Barber, Copland, Gershwin, Griffes, Ives and Piston, the first recording by a Soviet orchestra of American works.

“I have never heard them in person, but I have recordings of them and they sound marvelous,” Smith said. “It really is a major ensemble, and I have no plans to impose a particular sound on it.”

Smith insisted he was approaching the recording assignments, which are to begin Saturday, as he would any other.

“Certainly, I’m working on the scores and am learning a little Russian,” said the conductor of the Louisville Orchestra and music director of the Academy of the West in Santa Barbara (where Sheffield Records is also based). “I’m trying very hard not to overprepare myself for this. They are musicians, and I’m a musician. In that way we speak the same language.”

Mayorga said the informal musical summitry would continue in 1987, when Kitaenko is scheduled to conduct the Louisville Orchestra in performances of contemporary Soviet music.

“We started tossing the idea around way back in the summer of 1984,” he added. “But the warming climate that followed the Geneva summit made things much easier to accomplish, but it was still not the easiest thing in the world to set up.”

But Mayorga acknowledged that the notion of having an American conduct the Moscow orchestra came from the Soviet trade attache in Washington, Igor Preferansky.

“Preferansky told us, ‘We would be very much interested in having an American come to conduct our orchestra,’ ” related Mayorga. “And that brainstorm began to give the project some shape.”

Once the sessions are completed, the Sheffield crew will return here to master the recordings and, Mayorga said, “start planning the next one.” The three records should be released this fall.

“We sold (the $150,000 project to investors) strictly as a business venture, though,” Mayorga said. “The unique quality of the venture was apparent to everyone we approached. But we are still looking for contributions; it’s an awfully good investment toward a more relaxed future.”