The New York Philharmonic was closing its regular season that afternoon at Carnegie Hall with a performance of Beethoven's Ninth. A photo in The Sunday Times showed conductor Arthur Rodzinski, tenor Donald Dame, soprano Dorothy Kirsten, contralto Nan Merriman, and baritone Todd Duncan, posed around Walter Hendl at the piano. According to the Philharmonic ad on the same page, Duncan was returning to Carnegie Hall in a special post-season all-Gershwin concert to benefit the Pension Fund. Other soloists included pianist Oscar Levant, known to the movie-going public as an acerbic wit, and soprano Anne Brown. The program included "An American in Paris," "Piano Concerto in F," selections from "Porgy & Bess" and "Rhapsody in Blue." Duncan and Brown were the original Porgy and Bess.
The Sunday Times ran a comprehensive listing, including the selections to be played, of the concerts and recitals that week. Among the highlights:
The Metropolitan Opera was performing
La Traviata
Ballo in Maschera
Parsifal
La Boheme
Rigoletto
Salmaggi Opera was performing "La Traviata" at the Brooklyn Academy. In this amusing 1943 profile, Time magazine called Alfredo Salmaggi the "greatest producer of second-rate opera in the U.S."
The Stella Brooks concert, "After Many a Love Song Comes the Blues" included songs by Rodgers and Hart, Johnny Green, Vernon Duke, Dana Suesse, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Harburg and Schwartz, and others The ad for Stella Brooks , the "white Billie Holiday," noted that she would be accompanied by jazz trumpeter Frank Newton, boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson , drummer Coz Cole, Ed Hall on clarinet, pianist Sammy Benskin and Brook Pemberton (could this have been jazz bassist Bill Pemberton??). The concert was at Town Hall on April 20 and tickets were 90 cents to $2.40.
The performers scheduled for the Carnegie Hall folk music benefit concert for Russian Relief included Earl Robinson, Josh White, Susan Reed, Woodie Guthrie, John Jacob Niles, Pete Seeger, Edith Allaire and Leadbelly. This was the first in a series of three events scheduled.
Several other benefit concerts were among the listings that week. The “Night of Revelry” at Carnegie Hall was for the Non-Sectarian Jewish Home For Convalescents and featured the Zavel Zilberts Choral Society, Mabel Alexander, Josef Wagner, Negro Choral Group, Maria Theresa Acosta, Moune and others. Carnegie Hall was also the venue for the “Swedish Night of Stars” for the Associated Swedish Charities, featuring baritone Joel Berglund, tenor Torsten Ralf, soprano Karin Branzell, the Upsala College Girls' Choir, violinist Alice Erickson, the Swedish Singing Societies Male Chorus and others. The Organization of the Jews From Wuerttemberg had a benefit concert at Times Hall featuring pianist Fritz Busch, violinist Adolf Busch, cellist Herman Busch, narrator Margareta Busch and baritone Martial Singher.