Wilfred Conwell Bain

Bain's major contribution to higher music education was uniting what formerly (pre World War II) had been three different kinds of music learning centers:

1. Conservatories, a European model where student musicians trained exclusively in music to become music makers – instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors;
2. Music Departments at liberal arts colleges – including those of Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Chicago – that had two basic functions: (a) preparing young music scholars for futures in higher education, as functioning scholars in musicology, music history, and music theory, and (b) serving as curricular enrichments for general students;
3. Teachers Colleges (aka "Normal Schools"), that trained young musicians expressly to be teachers of pre-collegiate music, the K-12 curricula of the nation.

At two public institutions, Bain put all three models together into comprehensive music schools with the critical mass (large enrollments) needed for major productions in opera, large chorus, and symphony orchestras. And, Bain integrated these large, comprehensive music schools within their host colleges: first at the University of North Texas (then the nation's largest public teachers college that was emerging as a liberal arts university), second at Indiana University at Bloomington.[3] Putting talent aside, Bain strongly felt that a music degree from a comprehensive music school that was embedded within a liberal arts university was a more powerful degree (from an interdisciplinary, rounding perspective), for both undergraduate and graduate students. Bain capitalized on the intellectual assets inherent of a university. The science core requirement, for example, might offer musical acoustics taught by physics professors. The English departments and theater wings might collaborate with the composition department. The music schools of North Texas and Indiana, often, were beneficiaries of talented students not majoring in music (Michael Brecker, while at Indiana, declared English as his major).

• 1929–30 – head of the music department, Southern Wesleyan University, Central, SC
• 1931–38 – head of voice and choral music, Houghton College
• 1938–47 – dean, University of North Texas College of Music, Denton
• Jan 1941–? – national vice-president and member of the executive committee, National Association of Schools of Music[6]
• 1947–73 – dean, Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington[7]
• 1965–67 – trustee, Westminster Choir College
• 1967 – chairman, music advisory panel, USIA
• 1973–78 – artistic director, Opera Theater, Indiana University School of Music
• 1973–97 – professor emeritus, Indiana University
• Music Adviser, member of the board, Coolidge Foundation
• 1979–97 – VP board of directors, Palm Beach Opera (Florida)
• President, American Friends of Bayreuth
• President and secretary, Music Teachers National Association

• 1966–68 – member, National Council on Arts and Government
• Member, Leadership training Conference, Examiners Board North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools
• Member, Professional Committee, Central Opera Service, sponsored by the National Council of the Metropolitan Opera Association
• Member, Advisory Council of the National Society of Arts and Letters
• Member, National Association of Teachers of Singing
• Member, American Music Society
• Member, Music Educators National Conference
• Charter member, Indiana Academy (charter)

• 1929 — A.B., Houghton College
• 1931 — Bachelor of Music, Westminster Choir College (then also known as Williamson School of Church Music, Ithaca)
• 1936 — Master of Arts, Music Education, New York University
• 1938 — Ed.D., Music Education, New York University School of Education

Bain had been a pupil of John Finley Williamson, Father William J. Finn (1881–1961; former choirmaster of Manhattan's Church of St. Paul the Apostle), Isidore Luckstone (1861–1941), Hollis Dean, and Percy Grainger[8]

EdD Thesis Wilfred Conwell Bain, The status and function of a cappella choirs in colleges and universities in the United States, New York University School of Education (1938)

Bain was born to James Alexander Bain (1883–1960), a Methodist minister, and Della Bain, née Hawn (1881–1965). The couple married February 15, 1905 in Renfrew County, Ontario. They had three other children: Howard Erskine Bain (1906–1988), Donald John Bain (born 1912) and Doris Evelyn Bain (1917–2010),[9] (aka Doris Bain Thompson, wife of Dean V. Thompson) Doris Bain earned a bachelor of music in 1938 from Houghton College and a master's degree in music education from the UNT College of Music and became a music educator with emphasis in choral music.[10] In May 1918, Bain immigrated to the United States with his parents, crossing the Canadian-American border at Ogdensburg, New York.

On July 1, 1929, Bain married Mary Elizabeth Freeman (1905–1993). On November 27, 1941, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen during a ceremony in Federal Court in Sherman, Texas[11] He later married Elisabeth Bain (aka Betty Myers Bain, née Elisabeth Perkins; born 1918); widow of John Holmes Myers, PhD, CPA (1915–1993), former Indiana University Professor Emeritus Accounting. Betty is a prolific author of young people's books, particularly in areas of U.S. history.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Betty had one son from her previous marriage, Thomas Perkins Myers (of Lincoln, NE).

• New York Times Obituary