American Symphony Orchestra

In 1962, Leopold Stokowski -- one of the most famous, charismatic, and controversial conductors of the second quarter of the twentieth century -- found his career ebbing. Stokowski had recently been toiling in places like Houston, TX, and recording with pickup orchestras when he decided to form his own orchestra in New York City, but not a clone of the entrenched New York Philharmonic. He recruited American musicians, not the European imports who populated the nation's other major orchestras. He hired young musicians, women, and people of color, and with them performed a mix o...