Phi Mu Alpha Gamma Omega
On January 22nd, 1942, Arthur D. Hill, chairman of the music department, wrote to Sinfonia's national headquarters expressing his interest in wanting Indiana State Teachers College to have an organization that could help advancing music in America. After letters and mimeographs Sinfonia had approved the start of a colony at Indiana State. On October 5th, 1947 the Gamma Omega Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia was founded with twenty men that exemplified everything that Sinfonia stands for. Since being found the Gamma Omega chapter has brought hundreds of men into this one of a kind brotherhood. It has fulfilled it's object by putting on over one hundred and fifty recitals and assiting the school of music as it can. In 1971 the Gamma Omega chapter took advancing music in America to the next level by hosting it's first annual Indiana State Jazz Festival. Pictured below is the original Gamma Omega chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Sinfonia’s genesis was, in the words of sixth Supreme
President, Percy Jewett Burrell, “not really a beginning after all, but indeed
the product of a personality—Father Mills.” Ossian Everett Mills, then bursar
of the New England Conservatory in Boston, was profoundly interested in the
physical, mental, moral, and spiritual development of the Conservatory students
and recognized that a large proportion of them intended to put their musical
knowledge into the church either as organists or singers. Mills felt that this
class of people, as much as any, needed to be men of high ideals and, beginning
in 1885, invited a group of male students to meet with him once a week.
Thirteen years later, Mills was still leading these weekly meetings, and he
encouraged the “Old Boys” of the Conservatory to invite the “New Boys” to a
“get-acquainted” reception on September 22, 1898. Henry T. Wade, a member of
the original committee of “Old Boys” wrote:
The fact that Bro.
Mills made the initial move to have the men students get together and counseled
us in keeping the group interested, in having an efficient organization for
getting better acquainted and for fellowship, and also saw to it that we had
our first club room, gives to him, in my opinion, a just claim to be honored
with the title of Founder...
A 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. It is safe to suppose that some of the men
who were attending the weekly meetings held by Mills were present at the
gathering on October 6 and that, through them, Mills influenced the adoption of
high ideals of manhood by Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia even before its official
beginnings.
Sourced from http://www.sinfonia.org/history.asp, also published in Themes for Brotherhood
