Youth Orchestra Brings <i> Glasnost</i> to the Bowl : Music: The American Soviet Youth Orchestra forges community from a universal language. Its U.S. tour begins tonight.

A firsthand look at life on the international concert circuit for two USC music students is teaching them a lot about music--as well as culture and politics. As members of the American Soviet Youth Orchestra, the touring players have had to cope with everything from the Lithuanian quest for independence to varying conducting styles and last-minute program changes.

Tonight’s Hollywood Bowl program, for instance, has undergone a change in conductors, with attendant repertory substitution. “We just try to make the best of it,” said 24-year-old Sarah Coade of San Diego.

She and Owen Lee, 21, of Santa Monica, both double bass players, are among 50 Americans who have teamed up with 50 students of the Moscow State Conservatory for the two-month program, which was created in 1988. This year’s itinerary includes a 29-concert tour through the Soviet Union, Europe and this country. The European leg has been completed, and the U.S. tour kicks off with Hollywood Bowl concerts tonight and Sunday.

When the orchestra toured the Soviet Union just about a week after Lithuania launched its bid for independence, it proved an eye-opener, Coade said. Visiting the Lithuanian city of Kaliningrad, closed to foreigners because of its importance as a Soviet naval base, the orchestra was led by a Soviet conductor in Soviet repertory. The concertgoers literally sat on their hands to keep from applauding. “The next night, though, with Catherine Comet (one of the orchestra’s two resident conductors, who heads the Grand Rapids Symphony and the American Symphony) and no Soviet pieces, the applause was deafening.”

The Americans got a taste of Soviet living standards immediately upon their arrival in Moscow in July. The Soviets were segregated from their colleagues because citizens are banned from staying in tourist hotels. “We were all feeling frustrated,” Coade said last week by phone from Hamburg, W. Germany. “We only began to feel like one orchestra when we got to Europe.”

But eventually, Coade said, friendships were forged. When they learned that the Soviets do not have access to high-quality materials to make and repair instruments, the Americans gave them various pieces of equipment. And Coade is planning to enlist a Glendale shop in a mass re-hairing of Soviet string players’ bows during their L.A. stay.

Each American is paired with a Soviet roommate, resulting in some amusing attempts to communicate in French, German and even Spanish. But, Lee said, “it’s a pretty open, natural environment. Last time there were some offhand anti-Semitic comments, and remarks against homosexuals. That hasn’t happened this time.”

The Americans’ ensemble experience has come in handy in dealing with the orchestra’s changes in conductors. Principal conductor is Leonard Slatkin, music director of the St. Louis Symphony. Resident conductors are Comet and Leonid Nikolayev, director of the Moscow Conservatory Symphony.

Deborah McKeon, the youth orchestra’s general manager, speaking from Amsterdam, said that original co-principal conductor Alexander Lazarev of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra did not perform with the youth orchestra because he was touring with the Bolshoi Opera. “So Leonard Slatkin is doing the (Bowl) concerts,” McKeon said. Commenting on the repertory changes, Slatkin said, “I switched the program to things the orchestra knows. The players arrive tonight (Tuesday) in L.A. from Amsterdam and will have only one day to recover from jet lag.”

Despite conductor and program vicissitudes, the rigors of traveling and the interpersonal conflicts inevitable in any large group, Lee said that this year’s playing level is superior to the 1988 ensemble. And, said Coade, “the best thing about being in this orchestra is the relationship between the Americans and the Soviets. Everyone is really working as hard as they can to communicate, and to make this work. We don’t speak the same native tongue, but we do speak music together.”