 He composed for the "Ziegfeld Follies" of 1925 and 1926 and wrote several songs which became national hits.This helped finance his conducting studies with Felix Weingartner in Basel, Switzerland (1920–21) and with Hermann Scherchen in Strasbourg, France (1921–25).He also received a Juilliard Fellowship and the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome for his tone poem for large orchestra in a jazz idiom "New Year's Eve in New York".