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Don Butterfield was the American Symphony tuba player in 1971.

Mark Heter

I attended many American Symphony concerts with Stoki conducting - back when Gerard Schwartz was 1st trumpet...

Stokowski was an experimenter and innovator. I don't think he saw much difference between being a classical musician and an entertainer. Never used a baton that I ever saw; very minimal movements (he was really old by that time of course too) but he got the orchestra to play, and if they were on the right track he didn't interrupt them. He wasn't afraid to edit, or juggle parts around if he thought it get more music out of the paper. He was a organist and his transcriptions of the Bach toccatas/fugues still sound pretty good today. This was considered radical stuff in his day. He was pilloried by critics for some of this, but so was Mahler for editing Beethoven. Nobody remembers those critics today.

I do remember him starting an adagio movement on a piece, and becoming irritated with some bozo in the fourth row who insisted on talking during the performance. He stopped the orchestra cold, turned around, pointed at the guy and simply said "out" - whereupon the Carnegie hall ushers ran down the aisle and 86'd the offender. There was a smattering of applause for this, which was met by a silent glare from the conductor. Stoki then turned around to the orchestra and started off precisely where he stopped the performance. Stokowski remains one of my musical heroes to this day because he collaborated with his musicians.

Mark Heter