1941 LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI - THE ALL AMERICAN YOUTH ORCHESTRA Chicago Opera House

Description

This listing is for a promotional flyer for:
HARRY ZELLER
PRESENTS
LEOPOLD
STOKOWSKI
CONDUCTING
THE ALL AMERICAN
YOUTH ORCHESTRA
This is a flyer measuring approximately 8 1/2" x 10 1/2".
The condition is good showing signs of age and use with some folds
The performance was held at the Civic Opera House
On the reverse side of the flyer is a promotion for
Lily Pons and Andre Kostelanetz
I believe that this flyer is from
1941
based on the following history of the All-American Youth Orchestra
All-American Youth Orchestra in a time of war
Three quarters of a century ago, in 1941, a musical experiment ended — killed off by the very conflagration that brought it into being.
This was the All-American Youth Orchestra, founded in 1940 by Leopold Stokowski to combat the rise of anti-American propaganda by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
At that difficult moment in history, Stokowski assembled a new orchestra with a nucleus of eighteen experienced Philadelphia Orchestra players and eighty young players between the ages of 15 and 25. The project was designed to prevent South American countries from allying themselves with Adolph Hitler.
In 1939, the year that war started in Europe, theatrical producer Jean Dalrymple went on a tour of Latin America with pianist Jose Iturbi in his single-propeller private plane. She told me in a taped broadcast, “I found that Italy had sent over the La Scala Opera to Buenos Aires and the Italian embassy was giving the most marvelous open parties for all of the opinion makers of the Argentine, and everybody was saying ‘Oh, these Fascists are wonderful people.’ And then I got to Santiago Chile and Germany had brought their Staatsoper and the German embassy was open and all the opinion makers were there and they were saying ‘These Nazis are wonderful people. Look at these great artists they have.’”
Dalrymple called Secretary of State Cordell Hull and urged him to send something cultural to South America because the Nazis and Fascists were ingratiating themselves with Latin Americans who thought that the USA knew nothing beyond “how to erect skyscrapers and build automobiles.” Hull arranged for a goodwill musical mission and the platinum-haloed Stokowski leapt at the opportunity. He was the co-conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, sharing that post with Eugene Ormandy and spending half of each year in Hollywood (Fantasia was his latest film) — but Stokowski was restless and looking for new adventures.
He hired players for the All-American Youth Orchestra with no discrimination as to gender or color. In the summer of 1940 they sailed to South America and gave concerts in Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Santos, Sao Paolo, Port-au-Spain and Trujillo City. When they returned triumphantly to the United States they gave concerts at Constitution Hall in Washington, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Stokowski AAYO poster
A second season in 1941 saw a transcontinental tour of 32 cities in the United States and Canada, personally financed by Stokowski, that introduced symphonic music to many towns that had no such orchestras of their own. He planned another for 1942, through Mexico and down the Pacific coast of Central and South America. But before the dawn of that year Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the USA into war.  The army began drafting many of the young musicians, non-military travel was restricted and gas was rationed, which thwarted the orchestra’s touring plans and caused its demise.
Ironically, while the mission of the orchestra was to strengthen the United States’ position as World War II was beginning, the orchestra was forced to disband because of that war.
During the brief existence of the All-American Youth Orchestra, it made recordings for Columbia, which financed the first trip. About half were made in Buenos Aires during the summer of 1940; some in New York that year and others in Hollywood at the end of the orchestra’s cross-country 1941 tour.
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