For a five-year period, from 1936 to 1941, Leopold Stokowski shared the conductor’s podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy. However, Stokowski’s constant tinkering with the orchestra, such as his once telling the players to sit on stage wherever they wanted, led to increasing acrimony between the two conductors. In fact, by near the end of 1939, music critic Linton Martin felt obligated to admit, that despite the rancor between the two conductors, “the orchestra sings for Stokowski, its symphonic Svengali, as it does for no other conductor.”[1]
Nevertheless, with his contract with the Philadelphia Orchestra nearing its expiration, Stokowski announced that he had “accepted the invitation of eight South American republics”[2] to organize an orchestra that would tour these countries during 1940. He characterized the tour “as a way of understanding our neighbors in Central and South America by the return visits they will make later and as a simple and democratic way of making still closer and warmer friendship between the other American republics and our own.”
During mid-December, 1939, Stokowski met with Venezuelan embassy attaché Juan Lecuna, the director general of the Pan American Union, Dr. L. S. Rowe, and twenty other South American envoys to discuss his plans “for recruiting a 109-member, all-American youth orchestra to make a 90-day tour of South America”[3] during the following summer. Additional details were announced in January, when the National Youth Administration (NYA) head, Aubrey Williams, announced that the members of the youth orchestra would be recruited through the agency’s state offices throughout the country. Soon thereafter, reports began to be appear in newspapers that not only were applications being distributed to young musicians, but also, the dates and locations of audition sites were being announced. That same month, Stokowski declared that the orchestra would be a “paid, professional union organization.”[4]
After an initial screening of applications, during February and March, preliminary regional auditions were held in communities across the US in front of local NYA officials and other qualified individuals. The winners of these auditions then went on to compete at state-level auditions. In Detroit, Michigan, for example, Clarence M. Schultz, an 18-year-old percussion major at the University of Michigan, was the only one of a group of eleven Michiganders to go on to participate in the national-level auditions that, during the end of May, were evaluated by Stokowski himself.
Of the one hundred members selected by Stokowski, twenty of them were young women. Also among the former number was William Horner, who was an African American freshman trumpet major at Wayne State University. In addition, as many as fifteen additional members were section leaders drawn from the Philadelphia Orchestra.
On June 7, the orchestra members came together for their first rehearsal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Stokowski had been enticed by the mayor of that city, Tom Taggart, who had arranged not only low-cost meals and free rooms at local hotels, but also, rehearsal space at the municipal auditorium located on that city’s boardwalk, such that the orchestra members could “go swimming in the afternoon, and practice some more in the evening.”[5]
The day after the group’s final rehearsal on July 20, the orchestra presented a series of preview concerts in Atlantic City, as well as at several nearby cities, such as Baltimore and Washington, DC. These appearances generated enormous interest; for example, at least 10,000 people attended their last performance, on July 25, at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York City.
The next day, the group set sail on board the Uruguay. They performed in thirteen cities, including Havana, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, San Juan and Trujillo, Peru.
Although no North American music was performed, the orchestra did include in its programming the overture to Il Guarany by Carlos Antônio Gomes and Villa-Lobos’ 1929 piano concerto, Momoprecoce. Brazilian pianist Magda Tagliaferro (1893-1986) was the soloist. Meanwhile, the US press lauded the tour for having deepened international relations. In fact, the returning orchestra was met at the New York docks by Eleanor Roosevelt. Or, in the words of Carol Hess, “it was a triumph of Pan Americanism.”[6]
Though a second youth symphony tour was planned for January, 1941, the idea was abandoned due to the war in Europe.
Nevertheless, Stokowski clearly deserves recognition as a pioneer of musical Pan Americanism.
—John L. Walker
[1] Linton Martin, “Comes the Revolution in Orchestra Seating,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 November, 1939.
[2] S. H. Porterfield, “New Orchestra for Stokowski,” Sioux City Journal (Sioux City, IA), 2 December 1939, 1. The names of these countries were never publicly disclosed.
[3] “Stokowski Discloses S. A. Band Tour Plans,” Washington Daily News, 19 December, 1939.
[4] “Youth Orchestra to be Professional,” Miami Herald, 29 January, 1940. This amount was between sixty and 115 dollars per week.
[5] “All-American Youth Orchestra Gets Treat,” The Morning Call, 26 June, 1940.
[6] Carol A. Hess, “Leopold Stokowski, ‘Latin’ Music, and Pan Americanism,” Inter-American Music Review 23 nos. 1-2 (2008), 399.