Sokoloff's Stadium

Four years ago when Conductor Nikolai Sokoloff bought a farm in Weston, Conn., he thought he had found a perfect place for resting after strenuous winters with the Cleveland Orchestra. Next winter Sokoloff will not be conducting in Cleveland's imposing new Severance Hall (TIME, Feb. 16, 1931). Nor will his Connecticut farm be an undisturbed haven this summer. Italian laborers were jabbering all over the grounds one afternoon last week. Sokoloff shed his coat, pushed his hat on the back of his head and mounted a tractor. Guests who dropped in for cocktails were set to work, too. Violinist Ruth Breton, wearing white gloves, was given a sickle to manipulate. Ample Soprano Emily Roosevelt,* dressed up in chiffon, was given a hoe. Tenor Mario Chamlee climbed up on the tractor beside Conductor Sokoloff--to help him break ground for a stadium where symphony concerts will be given through July and August. The cocktail guests, summer neighbors of Conductor Sokoloff, will be soloists at the Weston Concerts this summer. The 70 orchestramen who will play on a stage backed by a big sounding-board are members of the New York Orchestra, a cooperative group of players who begged Sokoloff to be their leader when they heard that his contract had not been renewed in Cleveland. Sokoloff's retreat provides ideal concert grounds for Fairfield County natives and the many New Yorkers who summer nearby. Across from the slope where the benches will be built is a seven-acre field where motorists can park free. A window of the old barn will be turned into a box office. The summer concerts will give Sokoloff a chance to spend his tireless energy and to exercise his great talent for building up a musical organization. Next season the New York Orchestra will give monthly concerts in Manhattan, tour around between times to smaller eastern cities which big expensive orchestras like the Boston, Philadelphia and New York Philharmonic no longer have time or money to visit. The New York Orchestra has no wealthy subsidizers. No one will tell Sokoloff what music he may or may not play. A player may be dismissed only when his colleagues vote him out for incompetence or flagrant immorality.

*Distant cousin of President Roosevelt.

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