The Palestine Symphony Orchestra, which was founded by the noted Polish Jewish violinist Bronislav Huberman in 1936, this week played its 1,000th concert, according to cabled advice reaching the American Fund for Palestinian Institutions today. Of these concerts, 200 have been given before audiences composed exclusively of members of the armed forces of various Allied armies in the Middle East. The orchestra has toured Egypt, Palestine and neighboring countries to entertain United Nations troops.
The orchestra has received communications from both the American legation in Cairo and the commanding general of United States forces in the Middle East thanking it for concerts given to American troops. Consisting of some of the foremost artists of Europe, who were forced to leave their native countries because of the Nazis, the Palestine Orchestra has been conducted during its eight years of existence by many of the world’s leading conductors, including Arturo Toscanini, who led its premiere performance in 1936, and who returned to lead it again in 1938.
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