In February of 1941, New York City radio station WNYC organized a Festival of American music, which included a series of orchestral concerts and several premiere performances of brand-new works. One of these was by a 27-year old composer named Morton Gould. On today's date in 1941, Gould himself conducted the first performance of what would become one his best-known pieces, a work entitled "Spirituals for Strings."

Years later, Gould recalled that the premiere was "the most disastrous performance you ever heard." In 1941, New York was embroiled in a bitter union dispute, and so it happened that Gould rehearsed his new work with one orchestra, but when he arrived for the concert, was faced with a completely different set of musicians—who had to sight-read his new piece!

Despite this shaky beginning, Gould's music was taken up by major conductors of his day, including Leopold Stokowski and Arturo Toscanini. Over the next five decades, Gould himself was much in demand as a conductor, composer, and arranger for radio, television, and the concert hall. In 1994 he received the Kennedy Center Award, and, in 1995, the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Gould died in February of 1996, while serving as artist-in-residence at the newly established Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida. In May of that year, 55 years after its premiere, Kurt Masur chose Morton Gould's "Spirituals" as a memorial tribute at New York Philharmonic concerts.