An electronic music studio will open in Moscow early this summer. Sponsored by the Soviet Composers' Union, it will unite composers, performers, mathematicians, and programming engineers. Yamaha, Korg, and Roland will supply most of the equipment.

The first Moscow electronic music studio appeared in 1966 on the Scriabin Museum premises. It housed a color organ, which was Scriabin's invention, and a Soviet-made ANS synthesizer, which takes its name from the initials of the composer, who was a pioneer of music and color synthesis. The studio was shut down in the late 1970s with the allegation that electronic music was at a dead end.

Last year, an experimental studio opened in Moscow that, according to composer Mikhail Chekalin, its founding director, is the immediate successor to the Scriabin studio. Chekalin's assistants, physicist Dmitry Chekalin and industrial artist Sergei Dorokhin, built a color organ of their own design, which gives Mikhail's music, in his words, "a Kandinsky-style line and color arrangement."

Because he can't obtain any other synthesizers, Chekalin, 29 years old, uses mostly a Yamaha DX7 and DX21, which he is quite happy with. He says he is sure he fully employs the potential of his DX7, which is the most popular synth among Soviet musicians. He is surprised at his Western colleagues who, he feels, look down on it, attracted by anything that's new. Even Jean Michel Jarre, he says, seems to underestimate the good old Yamaha, as far as Mikhail can judge by the French synthesist's records. He thinks Soviet musicians better appreciate the potential of high-tech instruments.

This month, Melodyia Records introduces a line of experimental electronic albums of keyboard music. Chekalin's A Rapid Exercise In Vocalization, recorded a few years ago, will be the first of the series. Following that will be an LP of classical Indian ragas in a synth arrangement by Peter Vahi, former leader of Vitamin, a well-loved group from Estonia. A joint record by Alfred Schnitke and Edison Denisov will also be out this year. They performed the music on the ANS synthesizer in the Scriabin Museum Studio.

Vladimir PERVUKHIN, "Novosti Press".