Events in Music
- Jan 10 Eduard van Beinum becomes world's 1st conductor at Concert Hall
- Jan 16 1st jazz concert held at Carnegie Hall, performed by Benny Goodman and his band
- Feb 4 "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder opens on Broadway
- Mar 16 Noël Coward's musical "Operette" premieres in London
- Mar 26 NBC radio performance of Howard Hanson's 3rd Symphony
- Apr 8 Walter Piston's 1st Symphony in E, premieres in Boston, by the Boston Symphony, conducted by the composer
- May 2 American singer Ella Fitzgerald records "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" with Chick Webb and His Orchestra
- May 12 Arthur Honegger and Paul Claudel's oratorio "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher" (Joan of Arc at the Stake) premieres in Basel, Switzerland
- May 28 Paul Hindemith's opera "Mathis der Maler" premieres in Zurich
- May 30 Walter Piston's dance work, The Incredible Flutist, written for the Boston Pops Orchestra, which premieres it, Arthur Fiedler conducting
- More Events in Music
Musicians Married in 1938
- Oct 11 American jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong (37) weds longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith; divorce in 1942
Musicians Divorces in 1938
- Sep 30 Jazz musician Louis Armstrong (37) divorces pianist Lil Armstrong (40) after more than 14 years of marriage