The Leopold Stokowski Society was founded two years after the maestro's death to perpetuate Stokowski's memory by encouraging re-issues of early recordings. Many of these have now appeared on the RCA, Biddulph, Pearl, Dutton Laboratories, and Cala labels, along with re-releases of his stereo recordings on EMI Classics, Decca "Phase-4", Sony, Everest, Vanguard, and BMG/RCA, as well as 'live' concerts on BBC Radio Classics and BBC Legends.

In addition, the Society has helped to bring to the attention of several present-day conductors the famous "Stokowski Transcriptions." A number of these have been issued as CDs on Chandos, EMI Classics, Telarc and Cala Records. The Society's journal TOCCATA, published three times a year, features articles on Stokowski and reviews his recordings. Annual Social Meetings are held in London during April (the month of Stokowski's birth) to which eminent guest speakers are invited. In the past, these have included eminent musicians and broadcasters such as John Amis, the late Charles Gerhardt, Geoffrey Simon and The Rt. Hon. David Mellor, among whose many activities and interests a is devotion to Stokowski's recordings.

During its early years, the society produced a series of LPs exclusively for its members, and in 1993 issued its first CD - Philadelphia Rarities. This critically-acclaimed collection of rare 78s was then released on Cala Records (CACD0501). The collaboration continued with First Releases, devoted to previously unissued Stokowski 78s (CACD0502); Russian Masterworks (NBC Symphony Orchestra) (CACD0505); Strauss's Death and Transfiguration and Tchaikovsky's Pathétique (Hollywood Bowl and New York City Symphony Orchestras) (CACD0506); Schubert's Unfinished, Wagner's Forest Murmurs, and Brahms's Symphony No. 1 (All-American Youth and Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestras) (CACD0520); Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suiteand Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade (Philadelphia Orchestra, 1934) (CACD0521); Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, Sibelius's Swan of Tuonela, and Liszt's Les Préludes (recorded in 1947 by Stokowski and his Symphony Orchestra) (CACD0522); Stokowski's 1940 Philadelphia recording of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in Eb coupled with his 1945 New York City Symphony Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (CACD0523); his 'Phase 4' stereo recordings of Elgar's Enigma Variations and Brahms's 1st Symphony (CACD0524), and Franck's Symphony coupled with Messiaen's L'Ascension (CACD0525); Holst's The Planets and music by Debussy and Morton Gould (NBC Symphony Orchestra) (CACD0526); and a selection of his Bach Transcriptions with the All-American Youth Orchestra (CACD0527).

For a Stokowski Society Membership Form, click here.

John Woodford