Nikolai Sokoloff

This article is about the Russian violinist and conductor. For the Russian composer, see Nikolay Sokolov (composer).

Nikolai Sokoloff

Nikolai Grigoryevich Sokoloff (28 May 1886 – 25 September 1965) was a Russian-American conductor and violinist. He was born in Kiev, and studied music at Yale. From 1916 to 1917 he was musical director of the San Francisco People's Philharmonic Orchestra, where he insisted on including women in his orchestra and paying them the same as men. Sokoloff was the founding conductor and music director of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1918 where he remained until 1932. Between 1935 and 1938 he directed the Federal Music Project, a New Deal program that employed musicians to perform and educate the public about music. From 1938 to 1941 he directed the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. When he was a conductor he gave a violin to then nine-year-old violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin.

Sokoloff was the uncle of the pianist Vladimir Sokoloff.

Notable recording premieres

• Rachmaninoff, Symphony No. 2, Cleveland Orchestra, 1928

References

• Gibbs, Jason (Fall 2002). "The Best Music at the Lowest Price: People's Music in San Francisco". Music Library Association Northern California Chapter. 17 (1). Retrieved 2007-09-20.
• NAOSMM (28 November 2006). "Famous People with a Cleveland Connection". National Association of Scientific Materials. Retrieved 2007-09-20.

External links

• Federal Music Project from the Handbook of Texas Online