You won’t be surprised when I tell you the United States of America has culturally shot itself in the foot again. In doing so, the U. S. Information Agency (USIA in this country; USIS - U. S. Information Service - abroad, where it actually works) has eliminated one of its least expensive but most extraordinarily worthwhile programs. The agency has seen fit to shut down the USIA and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Artistic Ambassador Program, with its $135,000 annual budget.

    This activity reaped rewards worth many times its expense; it was a program that touched thousands of people in underdeveloped countries, bringing them joy, insight and knowledge, not to mention one helluva positive image of Americans as a people. In one particular area alone, it more than paid its measly cost by providing U.S. embassies an entrée to local politicians and business leaders who previously had ignored their overtures.

    What exactly did this "expendable" little program do? It sent nine musical duos to countries around the world each year to provide great music to people who were starving for it spiritually and intellectually. In addition, it gave them free access to knowledge about how to make better music and market what they made.

    As a pair of San Diegans can testify, it also made great American music available to parts of the world with no concept of Americans as artists, musicians and teachers, much less composers. "Most Latin Americans think all we’re about is Disneyland, MTV and Coke," says pianist Karen Follingstad. She and clarinetist Marian Liebowitz are just back from a whirlwind, month-long tour through Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela and Panama as one of those duos.

    Liebowitz and Follingstad tell of competing with 44 other finalists from across the nation, to win their spot. The competition included seven days of finals with the Liebowitz/Follingstad duo traveling to Stanford to perform a 30-minute recital program and participate in a 30-minute interview with the USIA program director. "The interviewer wanted to determine that we had the communication skills necessary for a variety of teaching, performing and diplomatic appearances," Liebowitz explains.

    Liebowitz, as a professor of music at San Diego State University, directs a course entitled Professional Orientation for the Performer, designed to teach musicians the business side of music - the promotion, advertising, programming, traveling, bookkeeping, etc. She tells of scheduled seminars on the subject given on tour in Latin America, that were supposed to last two hours and went for five, and left with attendees begging for more. "They were so hungry for information," both women note repeatedly.

    Liebowitz and Follingstad also did things that weren’t scheduled: extra seminars, extra master classes, even special breakfast get-togethers when no other time was available.

    The tales of artistic deprivation the two travelers report, especially in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, are hard to comprehend. Yet, these also are stories of the triumph of the human need to create even under the most adverse of conditions. "And remember," Liebowitz qualifies, "where we went, we hit only the top students and professionals."

    The definition of professional took on a new meaning for Liebowitz in El Salvador. "I gave master classes to the clarinet sections of the symphony orchestras in Merida and Maricaibo, Venezuela and in El salvador and Hondurus. In El Salvador, I discovered they were fabulously talented people but they were completely self-taught. These were the best people in the country and they had never had the benefit of a master teacher."

    USIA had suggested taking along gifts for the people the women would be working with and gave them a small allowance for the purpose. Both women took much more and used every bit. Liebowitz took along clarinet reeds, among other things; Follingstad, new editions of sheet music.

    "I would give away a book of etudes for clarinet - things every student in America knows but they had never seen - and a box of reeds," says Liebowitz. "The reeds cost about $15 in this country but it was as though I was giving them gold." Reeds are very hard to come by and $15 plus shipping and duty is more than most orchestra players can afford, especially in Nicaragua where the monthly salary of the orchestra members is only $150. And then, sometimes, even when they can be ordered, they just never arrive.

    In El Salvador, the clarinet players did not know how to shape the reed[s] in order to make them comfortable for themselves and to get the very best sound from the instrument.

    "They don’t have decent editions of Mozart," says Follingstad, "What we saw in the way of such music were copies of copies of copies of editions with turn-of-the-century editorial markings in them that we now know were just all wrong."

    What these top-ranked San Diego - and American - artists eventually saw as their basic role was to give the people in the countries they visited more tools to improve the level of music within their countries. Liebowitz says Follingstad probably raised the standard of piano performance in Central America single-handedly by getting all the pianos in shape. While Liebowitz prepared lectures or verbal program notes in Spanish, Follingstad spent hours with piano tuners, working up the excellent but often neglected instruments in the venues along the way.

    Musically speaking, "In the Central American countries, the musicians have so little," says Liebowitz. There are no music stores to buy sheet music, no master teachers, little or no instrument repair services and no outlets to the world for their own creativity.

    People brought them their compositions, the women reported, just begging that they be taken and played somewhere, anywhere. Now that they have been to Central America to play American music, the two performers are preparing a concert to display some of the musical treasures they discovered.

    Above all, Follingstad and Liebowitz believe the single element of their journey that did the United States more good than any other was what Follingstad called "soft diplomacy."

    "Whenever we gave a concert in an ambassador's residence, as we did in Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala, we met the cream - the ambassadors of other countries, other artists and business people," she recalls. "There were people who attended these events with whom the embassies had been unable to make contact before. Sometimes our appearance would stimulate local leaders to come forward and ask how they could help to continue such a program. Often, new relationships between representatives of the U.S. and the host country were cemented where none had existed before."

    I guess, though, the fact that the arts can stimulate new cooperation at all levels of contact in seven Central American countries isn’t how the USIA sees America's image being best served. Perhaps they think such a task is well enough served by Disneyland, MTV and Coca-Cola.

    Follingstad and Liebowitz already are planning to go back. Liebowitz is taking the crash faculty course in Spanish this summer; both are collecting music to send down. If you think the arts can say more about us than Disneyland, MTV and Coca-Cola, check in with the duo at SDSU and ask how you might help. Anything would be better than 100-year-old editions of Mozart.

    An author, lecturer and consultant, John Willett has critiqued music, dance and the arts for more than 16 years.