DAMROSCH, LEOPOLD (1832-1885), German-American musician and conductor, born in Posen, Prussia, Oct. 22, 1832. In early life a physician, he became konzertmeister at Weimar, then conductor of the Philharmonic Society at Breslau; he went to America as conductor at the Metropolitan Opera House and founded the Oratorio Society, New York, 1874, the New York Symphony Society, 1878, etc.
His son, WALTER JOHANNES DAMROSCH (1862— ), American musician and conductor, was born at Breslau, Germany, Jan. 3o, 1862. He went to America in 1871, and ten years later began his career as conductor in Newark, New Jersey. On the death of his father in 1885, he was appointed conductor of the Metropolitan Opera House, the New York Symphony Society and the Oratorio Society. In 1894 he founded the Damrosch Opera Company for producing Wagner and in 1896 produced Wagner's Parsi f al in concert form for the first time in the United States. In 1903 he was appointed director of the New York Symphony Orchestra, remaining conductor up to Feb. 1927. He was then appointed musical adviser to the National Broadcasting Company, informal lectures on Wagner with music having developed into lecture re citals over the radio. His compositions include The Scarlet Letter (1894) ; Cyrano (1913) ; and music for Euripides' Media, I phi genia in Aulis (Berkeley, 1915) and Sophocles' Electra (ii). He wrote an autobiography, My Musical Life (1923) .
Another son, FRANK HEINO DAMROSCH (1859-1937), was born at Breslau. He became in 1905 director of the Institute of Musi cal Art, New York city, and wrote a Popular Method of Sight Singing and Some Essentials in the Teaching of Music.