Music and art have had a long and storied history in Norfolk. A list of illustrious names provides testament—Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Jean Sibelius, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Cage, Ben Shahn, Josef Albers, Chuck Close, Eva Hesse. Performers, teachers, students, mentors, these artists and musicians had varied roles in Norfolk but each contributed to a long-term objective that had been established in the earliest days of the 19th century: to educate and elevate; in the words of Carl Stoeckel, “to shed light on culture, music, art and other matters pertaining to higher life.” Stoeckel was referring to the name of the music hall he and his wife, Ellen Battell Stoeckel, had built on their Norfolk estate in 1906 and to the purpose for which it served. That moment in time is a fulcrum about which the narrative of music and art in Norfolk is woven.

Museum open Saturday & Sunday June – October 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM