MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
                  has been permitted to travel to Cuba to perform in a trip aiming to bridge
                  years of Cold War tensions through music.

                  "Music is the universal language in the world," Andreas Delfs, a native of
                  Germany and the orchestra's music director, said Wednesday. "We play
                  music to reach out and make friends and this is the ultimate symbol for me,
                  to take my American friends over to a former enemy."

                  The visit is thought to be the first by a major American orchestra to the
                  communist island in 40 years.

                  Conductors have visited Cuba, a youth orchestra was there earlier this year
                  and a number of jazz bands visited the island "but nothing the size of the
                  Milwaukee Symphony," Anne Callaghan, a cultural coordinator for Cuba in
                  the State Department, said Wednesday.

                  The U.S. Treasury Department gave the final OK for the trip, which Delfs
                  thought up after President Bill Clinton loosened restrictions over Cuba,
                  which has been under a U.S. embargo trade embargo since 1960.

                  "To us it's an honor that we're going to be one of their first encounters with
                  American culture in all this time," orchestra spokesman Andrew Buelow
                  said.

                  The tour is scheduled to begin on Dec. 15, with a concert in West Palm
                  Beach, Florida. The next day, the 88-member ensemble flies to Havana,
                  where it give a performance.

                  Buelow said the orchestra hopes to take to Cuba gifts such as clarinet reeds
                  and sheet music and packages of Wisconsin products such as sausage and
                  cheese.

                    Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.