In From Dvorák to Duke Ellington the prominent symphony conductor Maurice Peress describes his career and experiences with American music and musicians. Peress conducted the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, worked with Duke Ellington on the Suite from Black Brown and Beige and Queenie Pie, and reconstructed and recreated historic American concerts at which Antheil's Ballet Mécanique, Gershwin's
Rhapsody in Blue, and Ellington's Black, Brown, and Beige were first presented. Peress also revisits Dvorák's three year residency in 1892-95, the controversy that greeted his radical notion that composers turn to Negro music for inspiration, and the careers of his students who went on to teach Copland, Gershwin, and Ellington.