- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWalter Johannes Damrosch
- Legendary conductor, composer, author, producer, pianist and educator who arrived in the USA in 1871. He was educated in New York public schools and studied music with his father Leopold Damrosch, Rischbeiter, Urspruch, and Von Bulow. He was awarded honorary degrees from New York University, Princeton University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, New York State University, and Washington & Jefferson College. He was accompanist to August Wilhelmj on his US tour, and permanent conductor of the Newark Harmonic Society. Succeeding his father as Wagnerian director for the Metropolitan Opera (1885-1891), he also conducted the New York Symphony and the Oratorio Society of New York, and produced a series of Wagner operas at Carnegie Hall in 1893-1894. In 1895 he organized the damrosch Grand opera Company, became staff conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in 1900, and reorganized the New York Symphony in 1903, which he continued to direct until 1927. During that year, he became a music counsel for NBC, and conducted a series of broadcasts. Also in 1927 (until 1929) he became president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and from 1940-1948 he was president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. During World War II, he founded a school for bandmasters at Fontainebleau, France.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hup234!
- SpouseMargaret Blaine(May 17, 1890 - July 28, 1949) (her death, 4 children)
- Musical director and composer.
- He was the first composer-conductor to be actively involved in introducing children to classical music - on radio in the 1930s. His approach has been criticized in recent years, however; often he would write and sing silly lyrics that he would fit to well-known classical pieces, in an effort to help children remember them.
- Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center is named in honor of his family.
- Damrosch was born in Breslau, Silesia, a son of Helene von Heimburg, a former opera singer, and the conductor Leopold Damrosch, and brother of conductor Frank Damrosch and music teacher Clara Mannes.
- He recorded very few extended works, and those were near the end of his most active time as a conductor; the only symphony he recorded was Brahms's Second followed by Maurice Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye suite with the New York Symphony for Columbia shortly before the orchestra merged with the New York Philharmonic.
- [on George Gershwin's 'Concerto in F'] Lady Jazz, adorned with her intriguing themes, has danced her way around the world. But for all her travels and her sweeping popularity, she has encountered no knight who could lift her to a level that would enable her to be received as a respectable member in musical circles. George Gershwin seems to have accomplished this miracle. He has done it boldly by dressing this extremely independent and up-to-date young lady in the classic garb of a concerto. Yet he has not detracted one whit from her fascinating personality. He is the prince who has taken Cinderella by the hand and openly proclaimed her a princess to the astonished world.
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