Ellen Battell Stoeckel, an accomplished musician and daughter-in-law of Gustav Stoeckel, the first Professor of Music at Yale, founded the Litchfield County Choral Union in 1899 and built a music festival around its concerts. The Norfolk Music Festival, on the 70-acre Stoeckel Estate, quickly became one of the most important and prestigious musical events of its time. The Music Shed, built near the Stoeckel mansion, was dedicated in 1906, and still serves as the venue for Festival concerts--"a beautiful long and narrow, cedar and redwood marvel which projects the most delicate pianissimo to the rooms farthest corner with loving clarity." Among the luminaries who graced the stage of the Music Shed during these years included Fritz Kreisler, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Enrico Caruso, Efrem Zimbalist, Alma Gluck, Louise Homer, and Jan Ignace Paderewski.