Band May Play Olympic Tune After All

With a potentially embarrassing court battle looming, Sydney Olympic organizers appear poised to reinvite American musicians--including 500 teens from Orange County--to play at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Games.

The move would be a change of tune for Olympic organizers, who in June abruptly yanked the young musicians from the extravaganza kicking off the Games.

Although sources say negotiations are leaning toward reinviting the teens, a final decision is not expected until a special meeting of the Sydney Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games later this week.

Pressure has been mounting for the committee to strike a deal before Aug. 16. That’s when a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by the company organizing the Olympic band, World Projects International, is scheduled for a hearing in Australian Supreme Court.

World Projects representative Luke Robinson said Sunday that intense negotiations over the last 10 days have focused on a renewed invitation that would also expand the band to include more musicians from around the globe. An organizing committee spokesman declined comment on the matter.

“Things are looking extremely positive here--far more positive than they have throughout the process,” Robinson said late Sunday. “We’re in tight negotiations with SOCOG. Hopefully, we’ll finish in a day or two, but we’re far from finalizing things yet.”

The report from Australia jibes with information San Diego-area band director Roy Anthony said he has been hearing from Sydney. In a recent e-mail, he was alerted that an announcement about the Olympic band negotiations was due Tuesday.

“I knew things were coming to a close pretty fast,” Anthony said. “Right now, I feel pretty optimistic. Until things are finalized, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed.”

According to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, the Olympic band would be expanded from 2,000 musicians to add “hundreds” more Australians as well as more musicians from Africa, Asia and Europe. The U.S. musicians would keep their spots in the opening ceremonies, playing for seven minutes before a worldwide audience of millions.

As part of the deal, World Projects may receive compensation for legal costs too, the newspaper reported.

The invitation to play in opening ceremonies was revoked in June when Australians realized that the “international” Olympic band comprised 500 Australians, 200 Japanese and 1,300 Americans--leading some to wonder why Aussie musicians weren’t good enough for the fete. Of the American musicians, 500 hail from Irvine High School, Kennedy High in La Palma and El Dorado High in Placentia.

Adding more musicians to increase the band’s diversity was a suggestion the Americans had long favored, Anthony said. The teen musicians last month rejected a compromise offer that would have allowed them to play at several lesser venues around Sydney, but denied them the plum opening ceremonies.

Orange County parents and students said Sunday that they were cautiously optimistic about being reinstated. Some students have made other plans for September 2000 in wake of the ejection. The on-again-off-again invitation could also hamper efforts to raise funds for the effort. The cost of the Sydney trip is more than $3,000 a student.

Bassoon and flute player Shannon Cyrkin was learning the saxophone for the Olympic event--until the invitation was revoked. After Sunday’s news, she decided she’d better pick up that saxophone again.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Cyrkin, a 16-year-old Irvine student. “I’m excited that people’s minds may be changed. I want to hear what the [local] band directors have to say before I get too excited. But that would be cool. I would definitely still go.”

Jorge Morfa adopted a similar stance Sunday. His son Anthony was scheduled to represent Kennedy High in opening ceremonies.

“I know my son was very interested in going,” Morfa said. “The kids were working really hard and saving a lot of money to go. If they still got a chance to go, that would be very nice. But we want to make sure everything is on the up and up.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.