Bayreuth Festival and foreign singers, long after they had been banned from all other venues across Germany (including heldentenor Max Lorenz, married to a well-known Jewish woman). Winifred's influence with Hitler was so strong that Hitler even wrote a letter (at her behest) to anti-fascist Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, begging him to lead the festival. Toscanini refused. From 1933 to 1942, the festival was conducted principally by Karl Elmendorff. It was under the Third Reich that the festival made its first break from tradition, abandoning the deteriorating 19th century sets created by Richard Wagner. Many protested at the changes, including prominent conductors
Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York music scene that was emerging out of Fluxus. The inaugural festival was at Judson Hall and featured 28 composers which included John Cage and Morton Feldman. Notable performers at the Avant Garde Festival of New York included Charlotte Moorman, John Cage, Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneeman, Robert Delford Brown, John Lennon, Alison Knowles, Nam June Paik, Morton Feldman, Dick Higgins, Ray Johnson, Richard Kostelanetz, Bill Fontana, amongst others. Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York The Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York was an annual event that began in 1963 as an open forum for the emerging experimental music scene