Lecture at the University of Michigan on Waghalter and the Negro Symphony Orchestra

On January 15, 2026, the independent scholar Dr. David Goldfarb lectured at the University of Michigan on Ignatz Waghalter and the Negro Symphony Orchestra (1938–40), drawing on archives at Yale and in New York that document the orchestra and Waghalter’s work with it. Goldfarb, host of Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature, a video series sponsored by the Polish Cultural Institute New York, is also historical researcher for the documentary film about Waghalter and the orchestra.

Goldfarb described how an existing orchestra of Black musicians rehearsing at the Harlem YMCA, led by Alfred Jack Thomas and managed by Leviticus Lyon, was enlarged and consolidated as the Negro Symphony Orchestra under Waghalter, who announced its formation in May 1938 after making contact with James Weldon Johnson of the NAACP. The orchestra was open to women; its concertmaster was the violinist Mildred Franklin. “Waghalter may have been largely forgotten after his death,” Goldfarb said, “but the Negro Symphony Orchestra represented a remarkable moment of African American and Jewish collaboration and hope in the arts.”

The lecture was reported by Barry Grey for the World Socialist Web Site:

“Lecture at the University of Michigan on Ignatz Waghalter and the Negro Symphony Orchestra” — WSWS, February 1, 2026 · Deutsche Fassung · University of Michigan event listing