Next time you feel like pulling your hair out over the bureaucratic pitfalls of overseas travel, spare a thought for Richard Pontzious.

Richard Pontzious

Once a year, the Hong Kong-based American arranges some 850 visas for over 100 young people from 11 Asian nations. He has to ensure a Taiwanese boy can get into Hong Kong, a Chinese mainlander into South Korea. And that's before any of the members of his Asian Youth Orchestra have even played a note.

"We're an office of three people running a business in 11 nations," Pontzious said during a recent visit to Tokyo.

"So, the logistics can be a nightmare, getting 100-odd people through several countries with very specific deadlines to meet -- you can't very well call up a concert hall and say 'Sorry! Our train got stuck.' "

It is 11 years since Pontzious, who is artistic director of the AYO, formed the orchestra with Yehudi Menuhin. In that time, his group has toured extensively throughout Asia, Europe and the United States, winning plaudits along the way.

AYO has performed at a number of notable events, including the Sydney Olympics Arts Festival last year and at the changeover ceremony in Hong Kong in 1997. In 1996, it became the first international orchestra to perform in Vietnam in 50 years.

Orchestra members have also had the pleasure to perform with some of the world's most respected soloists, such as cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Julian Lloyd Webber, and violinists Cho-Liang Lin, Akiko Suwanai and Gidon Kremer.

Pontzious said the main incentive for establishing an Asian youth orchestra was to try and stem the talent drain that often sees Asia's best musicians taking up positions with orchestras in Europe and the United States.

"Since I first came to Asia in 1967, the level of performance has not changed significantly . . . because the best people have left and never come back," Pontzious said.

"The whole idea [of the AYO] was to create an orchestra that celebrates these people's Asian-ness. Even though many of the kids may go abroad, many [now] want to come back and play in the AYO."

Pontzious credits this mentality shift with the level of recognition the orchestra has gained worldwide, particularly in Asia.

"That recognition exists in many ways," Pontzious said. "The impact the AYO has had on Vietnam, for example, is much more visible than in Japan."

Whereas there was no orchestra performing in Vietnam when AYO first visited the country in the mid-1990s, today there are three, he explained.

"In Tokyo there are 4,000 concerts a year, so the impact we have is not so visible here," Pontzious commented. "But, when we first started up, the Japanese students who came could barely speak English. Now, not only do they come for the musical experience but because they also want the international experience."

Pontzious insists, however, that the aim of the orchestra is to celebrate individual uniqueness.

"One of the great strengths of the AYO is that we're not asking anyone to be something other than what they already are," he said.

The unique identity of each orchestra member helps create "a level playing field that I think is a strength of the artistic end result," he added.

Pontzious says a conscious effort is also made to promote understanding between members, even if it means exposing uncomfortable facts of history.

"Asian young people are not very well-educated in their own history. So when we go to Nanjing, for example, I make it a point to tell the Japanese students about the Japanese Army. Of course they've never heard this stuff before. Our Chinese members do not know modern Chinese history at all.

"In the words of Alfred Nobel, we are trying to create a 'fraternity among nations,' where there's an appreciation of both sides. To let each member see the good and not so pretty points of their own country . . . is part of the AYO experience."

Pontzious also has found himself facing challenges when on tour. During a visit to Vietnam, the orchestra required two tubular bells in C and G pitch, he explained. They were forced to make do with plumbing pipes, "which, when struck, were nothing more than a clink and a clunk," said Pontzious.

"There's always a bit of drama backstage. But it's all part of the learning process."

Pontzious' efforts have not gone unrecognized. He was recently awarded the Bronze Bauhinia Star by the Hong Kong government in recognition of his contribution to the development of musical excellence in the region. Previous recipients of the award include actor Jackie Chan, who is, incidentally, a patron of the AYO.

Pontzious also was invited to join the governor's board of the prestigious Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.

"It's nice to know someone's watching," he said.