General Motors Concerts

The concerts began 1929-31 as a 30-minute series on the Red Network with Frank Black as the musical conductor on Mondays at 9:30pm.

The 1935–37 Red series, expanding to a full hour on Sundays at 10 p.m., featured Ernö Rapée conducting, along with violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Erica Morini, tenor Lauritz Melchior, and sopranos Kirsten Flagstad, Lotte Lehmann and Florence Easton.

[1] With a title change to The General Motors Promenade Concerts, the program moved April 1937 to the Blue Network for a series of hour-long thematic shows with male/female leads, including one show of Victor Herbert music with Jan Peerce and Rose Bampton.

Swedish tenor Jussi Björling made his American debut as part of this series on November 28, 1937.

The rotating line-up of leading name performers featured Björling, Donald Dickson, Helen Jepson, Maria Jeritza, Grace Moore, Erna Sack, Joseph Schmidt and Richard Tauber.