Ormandy's reputation grew through radio broadcasts and occasional performances with New York orchestras. In January 1929, he was hired to conduct an orchestra to accompany a dance recital by Anna Duncan, daughter of Isadora Duncan. In the audience was Arthur Judson, one of the most powerful men in American classical music. Judson was manager of both the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra and a large stockholder in CBS. As founder and president of Columbia Concerts Corporation (now Columbia Artists Management), he was also the artistic manager of most of the prominent conductors of the era.

Judson was Anna Duncan's manager, and he had attended the recital to see her perform, but as he said later, "I came to see a dance, but instead I heard a conductor." Ormandy was soon under his management, and he arranged summer engagements for Ormandy with the New York Philharmonic beginning in 1929 and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1930.