Outgoing New York Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel will conduct the orchestra in Danville Thursday night. Photo by Chris Lee | New York Philharmonic.

It didn’t start as a grand plan, although it is an ambitious idea.

Early in his career as director of the ­Norton Center for the Arts at Centre ­College in Danville, George Foreman brought in the Cleveland Orchestra for a concert. The 1983 performance of music by Franz Schubert, Dmitri Shostakovich and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, under the baton of Eduardo Mata, was undoubtedly a coup for the still-young arts center, which has since presented a veritable who’s who of classical and pop artists.

And Foreman wondered: What if he could bring the top five American orchestras to Danville during his career?

Cleveland was a start on the list, which at the time appeared to include the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

“It was such a preposterous idea to bring all the great orchestras to Central ­Kentucky,” Foreman says.

It has been slow going, too.

It was 20 years before the next group, the Philadelphia Orchestra, played the ­Norton Center in 2003. But Foreman’s unofficial series seems to be picking up speed with Thursday’s appearance by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by outgoing music director Lorin Maazel. It took only six years to book Foreman’s third major.

The New York Philharmonic’s appearance will be its first Kentucky concert in more than 35 years. The orchestra’s last appearance in the ­commonwealth was at the University of Kentucky’s Memorial Coliseum in September 1973.

“What fills Memorial Coliseum other than winning Wildcats?” the Lexington Leader review asked, “Obviously the New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Pierre Boulez.”

That concert attracted 9,000-11,000 patrons. It will be a considerably smaller crowd in the Norton Center’s 1,430-seat Newlin Hall on Thursday, but there is still a lot of excitement surrounding the concert by one of the majors.

The infrequency of major orchestra concerts helps explain that buzz, in part. But there is the reason you don’t see major orchestras on the Norton Center or anyone else’s schedule every season.

“It’s a tough thing to do financially,” Foreman says. “It’s expensive to bring in these orchestras.”

By expensive, he’s talking $100,000 to $250,000, although Foreman declines to say exactly how much the New York Phil is ­costing the Norton Center.

“The ticket revenue will not cover the cost,” Foreman says. But he thinks it’s worth it to bring in the best.

“It doesn’t diminish what we have here in the Lexington Philharmonic or the ­Louisville Orchestra,” Foreman says. “But this is a different league. These orchestras perform at a different level, and any time you have the opportunity to see something of this quality, you owe it to yourself to do it.”

The economy being what it is, Foreman says not to expect a major band on the 2009-10 schedule. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t plotting to bring in the next ensemble.

“If it is within my power and ability to do it before I fade from the picture, I will,” Foreman says.

Chicago and Boston are left on his list. The Norton Center has hosted the Boston Pops, which uses members of the Boston Symphony, but “I am not going to try to pretend they’re the same,” Foreman says.

The thing is, his challenge might have expanded. In the 26 years since that Cleveland Orchestra concert, Foreman says, “I guess you would have to count Los Angeles and San Francisco now, and then there’s the idea of looking beyond our shores.”

Foreman’s ambitions seem to have a way of growing.

Note: The print edition of this story gave the wrong date for the New York Philharmonic’s last Kentucky appearance. The correct performance is noted above.