51.   Russian musicians can join American orchestras only under strict union guidelines.

52.   So, naturally, he must be in the sightlines of the several major American orchestras that are looking for new music directors, right?

53.   Since then he has conducted European ensembles and the major American orchestras and made debuts with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Royal Opera.

54.   Still, it becomes all the more striking now that several other major American orchestras have lined up their next music directors.

55.   Specialists who follow American orchestras say that the Louisiana Philharmonic has succeeded largely because it has a core of musicians prepared to make extraordinary sacrifices.

56.   Subscription sales are down at every major American orchestra, although this probably has more to do with life style issues than programming.

57.   The American orchestra is, after all, a European creation, a musical machine invented to reproduce the European sensibility.

58.   The big American orchestras have complained bitterly in recent years that cuts in corporate sponsorship have forced several of them to abandon national radio broadcasts of their concerts.

59.   The boards of the American orchestras that are looking for music directors seem to be competing for the same handful of established, mostly European maestros.

60.   The American orchestra was in trouble, it said, citing the absence of creative artistic leadership as a major cause.