I am working on the concert register of Leopold Stokowski. After months
of work I have made it to the 1935-36 season. From April to May of that
season Stokowski took the orchestra on a tour of the US. One of the
rewards I got from all this work is noticing fascinating details about
Stokowski's programming. For example, when he took the orchestra through
the South (Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama) he included William Grant
Still's Afro-American Symphony. It is hard for us to remember (and in
some cases impossible) that at this time in our history this was not
only an unpopular political statement, it was also possibly dangerous.
Bob Stumpf