Walter Damrosch

Walter Damrosch was a German-born American conductor and composer who led the New York Symphony for decades and did much to popularize orchestral music in the United States, including pioneering radio music-appreciation broadcasts. He conducted premieres of works by Gershwin, including An American in Paris. He came from the Damrosch family of musicians of German-Jewish origin; his father, conductor Leopold Damrosch, was Jewish by birth.