Orchestra Plans Summer Tour of Air Bases Abroad

Some 30 members of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra may perform at foreign Air Force bases during a three to four-week period this July.

The Orchestra is now awaiting final Air Force confirmation of the tour, which would take the musicians to places like Bermuda, the Azores, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, and North Africa.

Negotiations for the trip began last fall when Orchestra vice-president Frank H. Allen, '56, who toured overseas bases last summer as a member of an inter-collegiate jazz group, wrote to the Air Force suggesting that the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra make such a trip. Although Allen had written mainly "out of curiosity," the Air Force replied four weeks ago that it was definitely interested in the proposal.

The exact number of musicians that would make the trip is not yet known, but the group would probably consist mainly of Radcliffe students, Allen said. This is because many of the men in the organization will have summer jobs that prevent them from going on the tour, and because the Air Force prefers as many women as possible among its entertainers.

The Military Air Transport Service, which books entertainment shows for air bases, would pay all the Orchestra's expenses on the tour except for personal spending money. The musicians would probably travel in a private plane.

Music played for Air Force audiences will be lighter than the Orchestra's usual repertory, John D. Martz '55, Orchestra president, said last night. Programs would be comparable to those used at Pops Concerts of the Boston Symphony.