His career in Germany was ended in 1933. After three years of restless exile in Europe, Waghalter arrived in the United States in May 1937. He soon became the moving force in the creation of the Negro Symphony Orchestra, the first classical symphony orchestra of African American musicians. The project could not survive the racial and political hostility of the time. He died in New York in 1949.

For decades afterward his music went almost unheard. The single exception was a partial performance of Jugend at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1989. Exile was one cause of this neglect. Another was postwar critical opinion, which treated composers committed to melody and the late-Romantic tradition as anachronisms.

Recent decades have witnessed a revival of interest in Waghalter’s music. Recordings of his String Quartet, Sonata for Violin and Piano, Violin Concerto, and New World Suite (which he composed for the Negro Symphony Orchestra) have led to a growing recognition of his melodic genius.

Drawing on the archive of scores, letters, photographs and press notices that Waghalter brought with him into exile, together with his recordings as a conductor, the site documents his work and its recovery.