Norfolk Chamber Music Festival
Encyclopedia
The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival is believed to be the oldest active music festival
in North America
. Set in a picturesque landscape among the Litchfield Hills
of the lower Berkshires
, the Festival traces its roots to the Battell family who started hosting summer concerts on the Norfolk town green in the 1880s. Now under the auspices of the Yale University School of Music, the Festival hosts more than 30 concerts each summer featuring professional performers and graduate music students from around the globe. Among many others, guest performers and composers over the years have included the Tokyo String Quartet
, Percy Grainger
, Fritz Kreisler
, Midori
, Pinchas Zukerman
, Dave Brubeck
, Jean Sibelius
and Sergei Rachmaninoff
. The Norfolk Festival has played an elemental role in the cultivation and development of classical music
in America. Today, with its rich history and beautiful setting, it continues to provide the quintessential New England
experience with a high-caliber offering of chamber music
.
family, was a generous patron of music as well as a skilled amateur flutist and composer. After graduating from Yale University
in 1839, he returned to Norfolk to manage the family business enterprises which reached to New York City
and beyond and generated a vast wealth that allowed him to become an important philanthropist. Passionate about the musical life of the community, he created a singing school and conducted concerts of the Litchfield County Musical Association in Norfolk and neighboring Winsted
. He conducted a performance of the Hallelujah Chorus to celebrate the centennial of the county in 1851. As a composer, he wrote hymns and choral arrangements, and set a great deal of poetry to music. Robbins was also concerned about the economy of his home town. To attract visitors and tourists, he built a hotel and, beginning in the 1880s, financed a week-long series of concerts on the green. This concert series became what is now known as the Norfolk Festival.
Robbins’ daughter, Ellen (1851–1939), continued her father’s legacy of bringing music to Norfolk. In 1895 she married Carl Stoeckel (1858–1925), son of Gustave Stoeckel, who was awarded the first Doctor of Music degree at Yale. After their marriage, in memory of Ellen’s father, Robbins, Carl and Ellen started the Litchfield County Choral Union which continues to perform at the Norfolk Festival to this day. Under Carl and Ellen, Norfolk soon became the first internationally known classical music festival in America. The Stoeckels assumed the entire expense of the concerts which took place on their estate. These concerts rapidly became extravagant affairs with parties and picnics and were among the most popular summer social events in New England. They recruited a 70-piece orchestra of musicians from the New York Philharmonic
and Metropolitan Opera
, and paid for a special train to transport the instrumentalists to the Litchfield Hills.
In 1906, to accommodate the ever-growing crowds at the Festival, the couple built a concert hall known, then as now, as the Music Shed. Carl and Ellen Stoeckel’s philanthropy extended to presenting the festivals and concerts free of charge. They sought no public recognition for their role; Ellen listened to the concerts from a secluded window above the Music Shed stage while Carl quietly entered from the side and stood in the doorway. They commissioned new works from many of the leading composers of their time and invited them to conduct their own premieres. Sibelius, for example, composed his tone poem The Oceanides
for the Stoeckels and conducted it in the Music Shed during his only trip to the United States on June 4, 1915. The autograph manuscript is now in the Music Library at Yale University.
for the “benefit and development of the School of Music of Yale University and for extending said University’s courses in music, art, and literature.” The Yale Summer School of Music was established in 1941. Since that time, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival has played host to thousands of emerging young professional musicians. Today the Festival offers intensive tuition-free programs each summer to approximately eighty students in chamber music, new music and choral repertoire.
in New York. A test concert was given in 1904. The success of the experimental hall led to the construction of the Music Shed which was built for the Litchfield County Choral Union and opened in 1906. The Shed had to be enlarged due to the number of chorus and audience members and, after an expansion in 1910, it could accommodate a chorus of 425 and an audience of 1,500. The Shed is built of cedar
and lined with redwood
that was hand-picked and imported from California
. The building’s extraordinary acoustics, not to mention the exquisite glow of its interior can be attributed to the redwood. Initially tickets were sold, but the Stoeckels eventually decided that events in the Music Shed would be by invitation only. Movie stars, politicians, high society and professional musicians began to covet invitations from the prestigious Battells. By the beginning of the first world war, the Music Shed was one of the country’s most sought-out venues and a premier concert hall in New England.
Leopold Damrosch
Lillian Nordica
Emma Eames
Louise Homer
Frieda Hempel
Alma Gluck
Fritz Kreisler
Horatio Parker
George Chadwick
Maud Powell
Sergei Rachmaninov
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(conducted premier of Pastoral Symphony)
Jean Sibelius
Max Bruch
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Dave Brubeck
Percy Grainger
Richard Stoltzman
Frederica von Stade
Midori
Dawn Upshaw
Pinchas Zukerman
Tokyo String Quartet
Music festival
A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...
in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Set in a picturesque landscape among the Litchfield Hills
Litchfield Hills
The Litchfield Hills is a geographic region of the U.S. state of Connecticut located in the northwestern corner of the state. It is a term that is roughly coterminous with the boundaries of Litchfield County, for which it is named...
of the lower Berkshires
The Berkshires
The Berkshires , is a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.Also referred to as the Berkshire Hills, Berkshire Mountains, and Berkshire Plateau, the region enjoys a vibrant tourism industry based on music, arts, and recreation.-Definition:The term...
, the Festival traces its roots to the Battell family who started hosting summer concerts on the Norfolk town green in the 1880s. Now under the auspices of the Yale University School of Music, the Festival hosts more than 30 concerts each summer featuring professional performers and graduate music students from around the globe. Among many others, guest performers and composers over the years have included the Tokyo String Quartet
Tokyo String Quartet
The is an international string quartet.The group formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music. The founding members attended the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, where they studied with Professor Hideo Saito. Soon after its formation the Quartet won First Prizes at the Coleman Competition,...
, Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
, Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
, Midori
Midori
Midori is the Japanese word for "green" and may refer to:- Places :* Midori, Gunma* Midori-ku, Chiba* Midori-ku, Nagoya* Midori-ku, Sagamihara* Midori-ku, Saitama* Midori-ku, Yokohama- People :...
, Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman is a world-renowned violinist, violist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and his ongoing 45-year career has seen him perform with the world's best-known orchestras and record over 100 works...
, Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
, Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
and Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
. The Norfolk Festival has played an elemental role in the cultivation and development of classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
in America. Today, with its rich history and beautiful setting, it continues to provide the quintessential New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
experience with a high-caliber offering of chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
.
History
Robbins Battell (1819–1895), the seventh son of a wealthy Norfolk, CTNorfolk, Connecticut
Norfolk is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 1,660 at the 2000 census.Norfolk is perhaps best known as the site of the Yale Summer School of Music – Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which hosts an annual chamber music concert series in "the Music Shed," a...
family, was a generous patron of music as well as a skilled amateur flutist and composer. After graduating from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1839, he returned to Norfolk to manage the family business enterprises which reached to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and beyond and generated a vast wealth that allowed him to become an important philanthropist. Passionate about the musical life of the community, he created a singing school and conducted concerts of the Litchfield County Musical Association in Norfolk and neighboring Winsted
Winsted, Connecticut
Winsted is a census-designated place and an incorporated city in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is part of the town of Winchester, Connecticut. The population was 7,321 at the 2000 census.-History:...
. He conducted a performance of the Hallelujah Chorus to celebrate the centennial of the county in 1851. As a composer, he wrote hymns and choral arrangements, and set a great deal of poetry to music. Robbins was also concerned about the economy of his home town. To attract visitors and tourists, he built a hotel and, beginning in the 1880s, financed a week-long series of concerts on the green. This concert series became what is now known as the Norfolk Festival.
Robbins’ daughter, Ellen (1851–1939), continued her father’s legacy of bringing music to Norfolk. In 1895 she married Carl Stoeckel (1858–1925), son of Gustave Stoeckel, who was awarded the first Doctor of Music degree at Yale. After their marriage, in memory of Ellen’s father, Robbins, Carl and Ellen started the Litchfield County Choral Union which continues to perform at the Norfolk Festival to this day. Under Carl and Ellen, Norfolk soon became the first internationally known classical music festival in America. The Stoeckels assumed the entire expense of the concerts which took place on their estate. These concerts rapidly became extravagant affairs with parties and picnics and were among the most popular summer social events in New England. They recruited a 70-piece orchestra of musicians from the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
and Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, and paid for a special train to transport the instrumentalists to the Litchfield Hills.
In 1906, to accommodate the ever-growing crowds at the Festival, the couple built a concert hall known, then as now, as the Music Shed. Carl and Ellen Stoeckel’s philanthropy extended to presenting the festivals and concerts free of charge. They sought no public recognition for their role; Ellen listened to the concerts from a secluded window above the Music Shed stage while Carl quietly entered from the side and stood in the doorway. They commissioned new works from many of the leading composers of their time and invited them to conduct their own premieres. Sibelius, for example, composed his tone poem The Oceanides
The Oceanides
The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius wrote the tone poem The Oceanides, Op. 73, in 1914 immediately before his Fifth Symphony. It was commissioned for the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut, at which Sibelius conducted the premiere performance....
for the Stoeckels and conducted it in the Music Shed during his only trip to the United States on June 4, 1915. The autograph manuscript is now in the Music Library at Yale University.
The Yale School of Music in Norfolk
When Ellen Battell Stoeckel passed away in 1939 with no surviving children, she stipulated in her will that her estate was to be used in perpetuityPerpetuity
A perpetuity is an annuity that has no end, or a stream of cash payments that continues forever. There are few actual perpetuities in existence...
for the “benefit and development of the School of Music of Yale University and for extending said University’s courses in music, art, and literature.” The Yale Summer School of Music was established in 1941. Since that time, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival has played host to thousands of emerging young professional musicians. Today the Festival offers intensive tuition-free programs each summer to approximately eighty students in chamber music, new music and choral repertoire.
The Music Shed
Designed by New York architect, E. K. Rossiter, the Music Shed existed first as a separate prototype structure modeled after Steinway HallSteinway Hall
Steinway Hall is the name of buildings housing concert halls, showrooms and sales departments for Steinway & Sons pianos. The first Steinway Hall was opened 1866 in New York City. Today, Steinway Halls and Steinway-Häuser are located in world cities such as New York City, London, Hamburg, Berlin,...
in New York. A test concert was given in 1904. The success of the experimental hall led to the construction of the Music Shed which was built for the Litchfield County Choral Union and opened in 1906. The Shed had to be enlarged due to the number of chorus and audience members and, after an expansion in 1910, it could accommodate a chorus of 425 and an audience of 1,500. The Shed is built of cedar
Cedar
Cedrus is a genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae. They are native to the mountains of the western Himalaya and the Mediterranean region, occurring at altitudes of 1,500–3,200 m in the Himalaya and 1,000–2,200 m in the Mediterranean.-Description:Cedars are trees up to...
and lined with redwood
Redwood
-Trees:Conifers* Family Cupressaceae *** Sequoia sempervirens - coast redwood**** Albino redwood*** Sequoiadendron giganteum - giant sequoia*** Metasequoia glyptostroboides - dawn redwood* Family Pinaceae...
that was hand-picked and imported from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The building’s extraordinary acoustics, not to mention the exquisite glow of its interior can be attributed to the redwood. Initially tickets were sold, but the Stoeckels eventually decided that events in the Music Shed would be by invitation only. Movie stars, politicians, high society and professional musicians began to covet invitations from the prestigious Battells. By the beginning of the first world war, the Music Shed was one of the country’s most sought-out venues and a premier concert hall in New England.
Distinguished Performers at Norfolk
Frederick StockFrederick Stock
Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...
Leopold Damrosch
Leopold Damrosch
Leopold Damrosch was a German American orchestral conductor.- Biography :Damrosch was born in Posen , Kingdom of Prussia, and began his musical education at the age of nine, learning the violin against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to become a doctor...
Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country....
Emma Eames
Emma Eames
Emma Eames was an American soprano renowned for the beauty of her voice. She sang major lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and had an important career in New York, London and Paris during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.-Early life:The daughter of...
Louise Homer
Louise Homer
Louise Homer was an American operatic contralto who had an active international career in concert halls and opera houses from 1895 until her retirement in 1932. After a brief stint as a vaudeville entertainer in New England, she made her professional opera debut in France in 1898...
Frieda Hempel
Frieda Hempel
Frieda Hempel was a German soprano singer in operatic and concert work who had an international career in Europe and the United States.-Biography:...
Alma Gluck
Alma Gluck
Alma Gluck was a Romanian-born American soprano, one of the world's most famous female singers at the peak of her career .-Life and career:...
Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
Horatio Parker
Horatio Parker
Horatio William Parker was an American composer, organist and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is best remembered as the teacher of Charles Ives....
George Chadwick
Maud Powell
Maud Powell
Maud Powell was an American violinist who gained international acclaim for her skill and virtuosity. She was born in Peru, Illinois. She was the first American violinist to achieve international rank...
Sergei Rachmaninov
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
(conducted premier of Pastoral Symphony)
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
Max Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an English composer who achieved such success that he was once called the "African Mahler".-Early life and education:...
Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
Richard Stoltzman
Richard Stoltzman
Richard Stoltzman is an American clarinetist. Born Richard Leslie Stoltzman in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent his early years in San Francisco, California and Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating from Woodward High School in 1960. Today, Stoltzman is part of the faculty list at the New England Conservatory...
Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade is an American mezzo-soprano. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, she acquired the nickname "Flicka" in her childhood. Von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in The...
Midori
Midori
Midori is the Japanese word for "green" and may refer to:- Places :* Midori, Gunma* Midori-ku, Chiba* Midori-ku, Nagoya* Midori-ku, Sagamihara* Midori-ku, Saitama* Midori-ku, Yokohama- People :...
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw is an American soprano described as "one of the most consequential performers of our time" by the Los Angeles Times. The recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, Upshaw is at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary...
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman
Pinchas Zukerman is a world-renowned violinist, violist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and his ongoing 45-year career has seen him perform with the world's best-known orchestras and record over 100 works...
Tokyo String Quartet
Tokyo String Quartet
The is an international string quartet.The group formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music. The founding members attended the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, where they studied with Professor Hideo Saito. Soon after its formation the Quartet won First Prizes at the Coleman Competition,...