The Washington times., 1923-01-18
5 LIFE
READS LIKE
ROMANCE
Cleveland Orchestra Directors
Family History Helped
Mold His Career.

/ Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor of the
Cleveland Orchestra. which will
give q concert in Polls Theater
Sunday afternoon, is the youngest
or the American conductors, and,
| critics both in London and America
have said, one of the two most
gifted. A.story of his life might be
read in romance terms.
/ A hundred andA fifty years before
Sokolof was born In Russia in
1885, his people had been profess
sional musicians. His father,
mother, two brothers and a sister
toured Russia as a musical family
the year Nikolaj came into the
i world. As soon as his little fingers
could direct bow or press the
strings, q violin was put into his
hands, and at the age Of seven he
occupied a chair among the first
V1olintsts in the municipal orchestra
at hev In those early days his
feet did not touch the floor as he
fiddled with the orchestra and sotne-
1 times his drowsy head would nod
and nod, until suddenly q tap on
the skull from the CONDUCTOR
baton would wake him up, and he
would SO on fiddling. His parents
intended he should become con-
cert violinist and for many hours
day the lad was kept at his
studies.
At the age Of twelve the Sokoloffs
came to America where the youth
ful Nik0lai's talent attracted the
attention of wealthy music patrons
in the East: After q competitive
examination he was admitted to the
Yale University school Of music at
the age of thirteen studying under
Horatio Parker and Professors
Four years later he was offered a
chair among the first violins in the
Boston Symphony Orchestra and re-.
manned there until a concert tour
pin Europe was rendered him.
SOkolOff conducted his first
orchestra at Manchester, England,
in his early twenties, and then re-
turned to America to become con-
cert master of Modest Alschuler's
Russian Symphony Orchestra, then
at the height OF it's artistic fame.
He then went to San Francisco as
the first vioIinist of the famous
San Francisco string quartet and
short time later took the desk of
the San Francisco Philharmonic
| Orchestra.
In the summer OF 1918 the Gin
cinnati Symphony Orchestra invited
Sokoloff to conduct during its
summer season, and it was dWRing
this experience that Adella Prentiss
Hughes representing the Musical
Arts Society Of Cleveland offered
him the baton Of the Cleveland
Orchestra then being organized. The
growth of the Cleveland Orchestra
under Mr., Sokoloff's baton during
the last five years is one OF the
most amazing stories in the history
Of American orchestras.
After his first season Frederick
Stock invited the Cleveland con.
ductor to the desk OF the Chicago
Orchestra as guest, and last year,
when certain people in England
wished to honor q distinguished
American conductor, it was to Mr..
Sokoloff to whom they extended the
invitation to conduct the London
Symphony Orchestra at the Ma
tional Festival in Wales, Mr..
Sokoloff appeared before 10000 per-
sons in his two performances with
the London Orchestra at Amman
ford in Wales, and SO great was
his success with orchestra, orchestra
directors and audience that he has
been invited to conduct six more
concerts with the London Sym.
phony.
For the Washington concert Mr..
Eokoloff VIII present Cesar Franck's
Symphony in D minor" as the
symphony offering, and Charles
Martin Loeffler's Death of Tin
tagiles" will be another number.
The latter calls for long incidental
solo for that rare instrument, the
viole d'amore, Watch will be played
by Samuel Lifschey, already known
to Washington concert patrons as
a soIoist and an ensemble player
of rare talent.