Ellen Battell Stoeckel Has an Enduring Norfolk Legacy in the Arts and Beyond
Though it has been nearly nine decades since philanthropist Ellen Battell Stoeckel — known widely as a “patron of music” — died in her Norfolk home, her life and legacy have endured through several avenues, including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
Ellen Battell Stoeckel was born in 1851 to Robbins Battell and Ellen Ryerson (Mills) Battell, read “Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists Since 1860.” After the death of her first husband, Frederick P. Terry, and son, Ellen Battell Stoeckel married Carl Stoeckel, according to her obituary in The New York Times.
Both the Stoeckel and Battell families had deep roots in music, particularly in Norfolk, Connecticut, and at Yale University.
Carl was the son of Gustave Stoeckel, the former head of the music department at Yale and a composer. Irene, sister of Robbins Battell, requested their brother, Joseph, fund an instructorship for Gustave Stoeckel in the 1870s, according to an article in Yale Alumni Magazine.
Described as an “expert flutist,” Robbins Battell established the Litchfield County Musical Association, which gave concerts in towns throughout the hills of northern Connecticut. He also sang in the choir of Norfolk Congregational Church for 40 years. Carl went to Norfolk to handle the affairs of Robbins Battell, read Ellen Battell Stoeckel’s obituary.
Ellen Battell Stoeckel was trained in piano and voice from a young age, performing at church and at community music events. After the death of her father, she continued his support of the arts in the area, sponsoring informal concerts in her home with Carl, then founding the Norfolk Glee Club a year later in 1898.
Ellen Battell Stoeckel and Carl founded Litchfield County Choral Union in 1899, which became known as the Norfolk Music Festival, and featured performances on their estate, called Whitehouse, by an array of solo pianists, violinists, orchestras, and singers between 1900 and 1922.
To support the performances, Ellen and Carl built an auditorium designed by E.K. Rossiter, read an article in The New York Times, on their estate in 1906, called the Music Shed, whose “excellent acoustics” remain admired today. The Music Shed could hold up to 1,500 people, a chorus of 425, and an orchestra of 100. No tickets were sold to the venue, with admission being by invitation only.
The couple commissioned new musical works by well-known composers. The festival saw the premieres of works by Victor Herbert, Henry Hadley, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Charles Martin Loeffler. Jan Sibelius, who had previously declined several American invitations, premiered a commission, “The Oceanides, Op. 73,” in 1914.
After Carl died, Ellen Battell Stoeckel — who received an honorary M.A. degree from Yale in 1906 — gave a “valuable library” of music to the university, including manuscript compositions of Sibelius and 40 volumes of orchestral scores, many of which were signed by the composers, her obituary read.
At her death, Ellen willed most of her assets and her family estate to a trust for the use and benefit of Yale, establishing summer schools of music and art, read an article in Yale Alumni Magazine. The Norfolk Music School began in 1941 under the direction of pianist Bruce T. Simonds through the School of Music of Yale University, read an article in The New York Times, with “a serious interest in music” the sole entrance requirement. A separate division for visual arts was established in 1946. The two schools reorganized in 1958 to be more directly run by Yale.
Today, the 70-plus-acre Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate is the summer home to the Yale School of Music Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. In a 1988 article by Robert Sherman for The New York Times about the program — which he described as the “unique jewel of the summer season” — he wrote “there is no concert site in Connecticut more beautiful than the rolling lawns” of the estate and “no Hall more historic” than the Music Shed.
The Festival begins with a week-long New Music Workshop, then a six-week Chamber Music Session for individual instrumentalists and ensembles, concluding with a one-week Chamber Choir and Choral Conducting Workshop.
Each year, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival concerts take place in the Music Shed on Friday and Saturday evenings, featuring Festival artists and fellows. Fellows also have the opportunity to perform as part of the Emerging Artist Series, which take place multiple times during the week throughout summer.
Facilities on the 70-acre estate include individual practice spaces, private rehearsal studios for each ensemble, and a lecture hall and music library, according to Yale. The estate also includes professional recording facilities, residences for festival artists, fellows, and staff, an art gallery (during the New Music Workshop), and “many green spaces,” soccer, and baseball fields.
The Yale Norfolk School of Art is a six-week undergraduate summer residency program for 26 rising seniors that was established in 1948 and takes place on the estate, read a program description. The program is supported by the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Trust.
In addition to the arts, Ellen Battell Stoeckel also donated land for Haystack State Park in the northwestern part of Connecticut in 1929: “A tower and road were built on the site,” and “the park was dedicated to her father and her husband,” taken from her obituary.
