Upsilon Phi Information

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is a collegiate social fraternity for men with an interest in music. The Fraternity is also referred to as Phi Mu Alpha or Sinfonia, and its members are known as Sinfonians. The Fraternity currently has 217 active collegiate chapters, 15 colonies, and 12 area alumni associations throughout the United States. More than 150,000 men have been initiated into Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia since its founding in 1898, making it the largest and oldest secret society in music. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia operates independently from any of the major governing councils for collegiate fraternities in the United States such as the North-American Interfraternity Conference, though it is a member of other interfraternal organizations such as the Association of Fraternity Advisors, the Collegiate Fraternity Editors Association, and the National Interfraternity Music Council. Since 1970, it has been headquartered at Lyrecrest, an estate on the northern outskirts of Evansville, Indiana. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia was founded as the "Sinfonia Club" on October 6, 1898, by Ossian Everett Mills and thirteen students at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Traditionally, the origin of the name "Sinfonia" is attributed to George W. Chadwick, the director of the New England Conservatory who was elected as the second honorary member of the club after Ossian Mills. Chadwick suggested the name after the name of a club of which he was a lay member in Leipzig, Germany. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia became a national fraternity on October 6, 1900, with the admission of a group of men at the Broad Street Conservatory of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Under the guidance of Percy Jewett Burrell (sixth Supreme President, 1907-1914), whose writings and speeches continue to be influential in the teaching of Sinfonian ideals to this day, the fraternity grew. Sinfonia became a professional fraternity in 1970. When Title IX was passed in 1972, Phi Mu Alpha began to open membership up to women, as all professional ...