page_title: University of Missouri School of Music
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: University of Missouri School of Music / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Lathrop Hall on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, Missouri. Picture from the 1905 Savitar
context_page_description: The School of Music is a major academic division of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Its focus is the study of music, awarding baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral degrees as part of the College of Arts and Science. The institution's programs encompass composition, performance, conducting, music education, music history, musical theatre and musicology. Established in 1917 as the Department of Music, the school continues to play a prominent role in the cultural life of Missouri and is located in the Sinquefield Music Center, on the University's flagship campus in Downtown Columbia. The Fine Arts Building also houses classrooms, studios, and a recital hall. Its major performance venues are Jesse Hall, the Missouri Theatre, and Whitmore Recital Hall. The Missouri Tigers marching band, Marching Mizzou, performs at Faurot Field for Southeastern Conference football games. The school's ensembles have performed worldwide and can be heard weekly on the University's own KMUC 90.5 FM Classical, Mid-Missouri's classical music radio station. Alumni include singers Sheryl Crow and Neal Boyd, Canadian Brass founder Gene Watts, and jazz artist Mike Metheny.
context_section_description: Music has accompanied life at the University of Missouri since the dedication of Academic Hall in 1843. Although of that first venue only The Columns remain, music itself has since become a serious topic of study at the University. Instruction as part of official curriculum began in 1885 with the founding of the Cadet Band at the suggestion of military science professor Enoch Crowder. That band, today known as Marching Mizzou, proved popular with both university students and the townspeople of Columbia. It was not until 1907 that University President Richard Jesse appointed William Pommer as the first instructor of music. That same year Pommer, along with German professor Hermann Almstedt and future University President Albert Ross Hill, formed the Zeta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (ΦΜΑ). One of the earliest chapters of the fraternity, and the first at an institution without a school of music, Zeta played an instrumental role in the growth of the University's musical environment, especially the creation of a concert series which brought the likes of Vladimir de Pachmann, Percy Grainger, and the St. Louis Symphony to the campus. In 1910, the University became one of the earliest American universities to give credit for applied music lessons. The Department of Music as part of the College of Arts and Sciences was established in 1917, largely due to the efforts of Pommer, who continued to teach at the University until his retirement in 1922. 
  Organist James Quarles was appointed the chair of the Department in 1923. Previously head of Cornell University's Music Department, Quarles became Missouri's first Dean of the School of Fine Arts upon its establishment as the university's tenth division in 1924. Other dramatic changes occurred in 1924 as the Department of Music found a new home in Lathrop Hall, a re-purposed dormitory near Francis Quadrangle, and the University assumed responsibility for the Phi Mu Alpha Concert Series which had become too popular for the fraternity to manage. At that time it was rechristened as the "University Concert Series," and continues to the present day. Outside of the concert series, famous Columbia ragtime pianist Blind Boone attended rehearsal and performed for the Cadet Band.
  In 1933, the Department of Music became a member of the National Association of Schools of Music and in 1935 the University Concert Series hosted pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff in front of a crowd of thousands. The University's most exclusive choral ensemble, University Singers, was created in 1946 by choral director Paul Van Bodegraven. In 1941, as women became increasingly involved in the Department, they established an international music fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota. In 1954, pianist Bethune Bischooff became the first woman appointed to a full-time position. The band program was reorganized in 1956 and the Cadet Band became the football band; Professor Richard Hills named them "Marching Mizzou". 
  Modernity arrived in 1961 with the completion the Fine Arts Building. Though panned by critics past and present for its design, "FAB" was the first University space designed specifically for music and included a modern recital hall. The first jazz ensemble sponsored by the Department was the Studio Band, which formed in 1966. Composer Thomas McKenney began the process of establishing an electronic studio for composition in 1969. In 1975, composition professor John Cheetham introduced a music appreciation course entitled "Jazz, Pop & Rock." This course, popular with music majors and non-majors alike, would become the most popular ever offered by the School. Apart from the budding study of music history, composition, and jazz, faculty members established the Esterhazy String Quartet in 1968. The quartet's tours of South America, beginning in 1976, drew international students to the University.
  The School of Music's ensembles continued to tour widely over the next decades and august musical guest visited campus. Marching Mizzou and the University Singers represented Missouri during the United States bicentennial year; the Uni
caption: Lathrop Hall around 1905, prior to its usage by the Department of Music and subsequent demolition[23][24]
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