New York Philharmonic In Memory of Dimitri Mitropoulos. Mitropoulos was rehearsing the Mahler 3rd Symphony in Milan with the La Scala Orchestra when he died. He was scheduled to conduct the piece with the New York Philharmonic. This concert was dedicated to him and the Dimitri Mitropoulos Memorial Fund was established to commission works by young composers in the U.S. radio broadcast choir and orchestra performance 1961-03-30T20:30:00