Sinfonia --- The Beginning

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia began with an invitation to a get-acquainted reception, extended by the "Old Boys" to the "New Boys" of Boston's New England Conservatory early in the fall term of 1898. A spontaneous discussion about forming a men's music club took place among some of the men who attended the reception and, there being considerable interest in the idea, a meeting was planned for the evening of October 6 to further explore the possibilities.

A similar desire for fellowship among musicians had earlier led Ossian E. Mills, then Bursar of the Conservatory, to invite a group of male students to meet informally with him once a week. It is safe to suppose that some of these men were present at the gathering on October 6 and that, through them, Mills influenced the adoption of high ideals of brotherhood by Phi Mu Alpha even before its official beginnings.

The minutes of that first meeting October 6, 1898 describe the appointment of a "committee on rules and regulations," which was to prepare a set of bylaws for the new organization. On October 25, the club's 13 active and 1 honorary member (Ossian Mills) accepted from the committee a governing document which has remained the fraternity's philosophy of existence to the present day. In part, it read:

The object of this fraternity shall be for the development of the best and truest fraternal spirit; the mutual welfare and brotherhood of musical students; the advancement of music in America and a loyalty to the Alma Mater.

The club also accepted the suggestion of the newly-elected Director of the Conservatory (and the fraternity's second honorary member), George W. Chadwick, that the group adopt the name of an organization of which he had been a member during his student days in Leipzig. SINFONIA was born.

The fledgling society was a success from its very beginning. The first recorded initiation of new members took place on November 28. 1898, barely a month after Sinfonia's founding. Under the leadership of its President, Frank Leslie Stone, the fraternity carried on a busy schedule of social events, presented recitals, concerts, shows, sponsored a men's glee club, entertained visiting artists, renovated the chapter rooms set aside for their use by the Conservatory, and held regular fortnightly meetings, one of the main features of which was the initiation of new members by a mysterious process called "riding the goat."

The goat must have gotten plenty of exercise, for by October of 1899 the club numbered about fifty men and continued to add members at frequent intervals. Sinfonia's outstanding success gave rise to thoughts of expansion in the minds of Founder Mills, Percy Jewett Burrell, its second President, and Ralph Howard Pendleton, its Treasurer. To them it seemed that, if their club were fulfilling a need among the men at the New England Conservatory, surely men in other conservatories in the country could find benefit and pleasure in similar organizations in their schools. Large Greek-letter fraternities flourished on college campuses, but there was no social-profesional brotherhood for men in music. Why not establish a national Sinfonia for men studying music in conservatories and music schools coast to coast? However, the men of Boston's Sinfonia were by no means of one mind on the question of expansion; at a meeting on October 1, 1900 to discuss the issue, arguments pro and con were vigorous and tempers grew hot. But, in the end, a majority agreed to spend $25.00 from the club's treasury (which totaled $34.00!) to send men to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington in order to present firsthand to male students of the leading conservatories there the idea of Sinfonia. The expedition attracted notice far outside the student world; mention appeared in leading newspapers and the New York Concert Goer printed the following:

"The Sinfonia Club of the New England Conservatory of Boston, is this week sending three of its officers, Percy J. Burrell, president; Henry H. Hall, vice-president; and Ralph Howard Pendleton, secretary, to New York, Philadelphia and Washington to look to the advisability of forming chapters in the leading conservatory of each of the three cities. The object of the Sinfonia Club, which is now an organization of three years growth, is to develop into a National Male Student Musical Fraternity, as today there is no such organization in existence in America. With the cooperation of a few leading conservatories in the West, still outside, the promoters hope that a National Male Student Musical Fraternity will be incorporated within a few months. The rooms of the Sinfonia club in the Conservatory Building, Boston, are models in every respect, luxuriously fitted out, and it is a spot where artists entertain and are entertained."

So it happened that Pendleton and Henry Hall found themselves in Philadelphia and in conference with men of the old Broad Street Conservatory on October 6, 1900, two years to the day after Sinfonia's birth in Boston; and so it was that the Philadelphia students requested and received admission to Sinfonia as its Beta Chapter, confirmed by the following telegram sent back to the waiting brothers at the New england Conservatory:

On November 26, 1900 a group of twelve at the American Institute of Applied Art in New York City became Gamma Chapter, and Delta, at Ithaca Conservatory, followed in the last weeks of January, 1901. To govern the affairs of the now national fraternity, a convention of its four chapters was called in Boston on April 16-20, 1901. The assembly saw the sights and took in concerts in Boston, elected Ossian Mills national President, and set about the business of fraternity government which has continued ever since. By 1902, Beta had progressed sufficiently to host the second National Convention.

National conventions were held annually until the beginning of the First World War, resuming after the cessation of hostilities and continuing until 1920, when it was decided to hold conventions biennially. These continued until 1964, at which time the triennial National Delegate Representative Assembly came into being.

Since the beginnings of its brotherhood on a national scale, the number of Sinfonia's chapters has increased in an ever accelerating manner. The initial four chapters in 1901, perhaps under the stimulus of official incorporation in 1904, had doubled by 1910 and doubled again by 1920.

In its twenty-fifth year, the fraternity had twenty-five active chapters; this increased to fifty chapters in the incredibly short space of seven years. A featured even of the Fiftieth Anniversary celebrations in 1948 was the installation of Phi Mu alpha's hundredth active chapter and by the fraternity's Seventy-Fifth Anniversary year, nearly 340 chapter charters had been issued, of which better than ninety-five percent were still outstanding.

Although Phi Mu Alpha was founded as a social society, the fraternity displayed from its beginnings numerous professional qualities which have, in the course of its history, come to dominate Sinfonia's raison d'etre. The earliest records of Alpha chapter speak of the musical performances which were such an important part of the chapter's everyday life; by the second year of its existence the club had established a scholarship fund to be used by deserving members. In 1911, the Eleventh National Convention authorized a national composition contest with an award of twenty five dollars. The next National Convention raised the prize to one hundred dollars; in the subsequent course of its fifty-year history, the contest expanded into a number of different categories and attracted some of America's major compositional talent as entrants.

The composition competition was one of the earliest of the fraternity's attacks upon the problem of winning recognition for the native American musician. Well into the twentieth century, a composer or performed was not acknowledged until after years of European study or unless he were European-born and educated. Since early in the century Phi Mu Alpha has worked to alter these prejudices, not only through the composition contest, but in outstanding performances by its members in recital and concert and through excellence in teaching, which has borne fruit in large numbers of students equal in musical stature to the finest graduates of European conservatories.

However, despite these early accomplishments and vigorous later activity at Sinfonia's grassroots, the first half-century of Phi Mu Alpha's history was not characterized by major achievement at the national level. The everyday demands of managing a fraternity of the size Sinfonia had rapidly become taxed its part-time national administration past the point that it was able to provide the kind of detached leadership and outreach necessary to well coordinated fraternity-wide projects. Many worthwhile activities were undertaken by individual chapters to the betterment of music in America, but significant professional accomplishment by Sinfonia as a whole had to await major changes in the fraternity's pattern of government.

The beginning of such changes occurred with the chartering of the Sinfonia Foundation in 1952. Because it was a wholly philanthropic organization, unburdened with the administration of the fraternity as a whole, the Foundation was able to concentrate on identifying and pursuing worthwhile goals in accord with the fraternity's stated purposes. The creation in 1958 of a full-time executive post at the head of an augmented national office staff provided further opportunity for Phi Mu Alpha's national leadership to pursue activities not directly connected with the everyday "business" of the fraternity.

These changes, along with an increased concern among American musicians as to the future of their art, signaled the beginning of an era of immense promise to Sinfonia. Numerous and significant advances have already been made in the fraternity's professional activities. Based upon a gradually increasing endowment, the Sinfonian Foundation has undertaken an ambitious series of programs directed to the advancement of American music. The fraternity's Commissions on Standards, Professional Activities, and Awards, established in 1970, encourage and recognize excellence in music both within Sinfonia and beyond. Six thousand, forty-two members were initiated in the 1979-1982 triennium, swelling Sinfonia's total membership to more than ninety-one thousand, included among whom are students of music (whether music majors or not), music educators, administrators, composers, and performers---brothers all in Phi Mu Alpha, the world-renowned performer at the peak of his profession and the undergraduate who was initiated yesterday alike.

The fraternity has grown far beyond the dreams of a few men in Boston and Philadelphia all those years ago. Its significant influence upon the musical life of America cannot be measured. But while there are those who believe in music and the brotherhood of musicians, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia will flourish and make significant and lasting contributions to the cause of music in America.

Once a Sinfonian, Always a Sinfonian!
Long Live Sinfonia!