Sinfonia Choir performs live in the Pottle music building at the Student Life Spring concert.  Sigma Alpha Iota Choir, Ton of Fun Quartet and the Sinfonia Brass Band also performed at the Spring concert.
The Lion's Roar/Kelli Meynard

Fraternities are not just the traditional Greek life that throw parties and give back to the community with fundraisers. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is a fraternity on campus that was founded in 1898 in Boston, Massachusetts and they are all about the brotherhood of musical students.

On Monday, Apr. 18 the Student Life Spring Concert was held on campus in the Pottle music building. Performances were made by the Sinfonia Choir, Sigma Alpha Iota Choir, Ton of Fun Quartet and the Sinfonia Brass Band. The concert was held to show the importance of the friendship of students. 

“The goal was to represent friendship as radically crucial,” said senior music major and Sinfonia member Blayke Weatherford. “We encouraged everyone in attendance to be a friend of the SLU Department of Fine and Performing Arts and take donations that are going straight to the financial aid of music students.”

The musicians performed songs such as the university’s “Alma Mater”, a “Nintendo Medley,” “Thriller,” “Happy Together” and more. 

“I selected the songs by trying to create a flowing narrative of a day in the life of a student,” said Weatherford. “I was inspired to pursue that particular theme by the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia song, ‘Student Life,’ a song that we sing from our songbooks, which we also sang in the concert. I also thought that it would be wonderful to open the concert with SLU’s complete ‘Alma Mater,’ which I arranged for male chorus last year.”

Brotherhood and sisterhood are important to Greek life members and with Sinfonia being a Music Fraternity, they also think very strongly of these qualities.

“Brotherhood is considered a high priority in our organization and we constantly strive to not only maintain an atmosphere that is productive of our goals as a chapter, but also one that is conducive to interpersonal openness, understanding and the enjoyment of one another’s company,” said Weatherford.

Members of Sinfonia all share the love for music and Weatherford believes that is what makes the spirit of brotherhood so much better.

“Fortunately, being a music fraternity and everyone feeling so passionately about music itself, we can attain a spirit of brotherhood in a couple of minutes just by singing one of our songs,” said Weatherford. “In my opinion, the fraternity’s degree of fellowship is in large part directly related to each person’s love of music.”

Weatherford inspires students to join organizations with the same interests as them.

“I would encourage every college student to seek out that group of people that shares your interests, your desires and your aspirations,” said Weatherford. “As was the point of our concert, friendship is so crucial to making it through your life as a student.”

The Sinfonia Fraternity includes the following members: three members of the “Boston Six,” Andrew Carnegie, George Eastman, Andy Griffith, Fred Rogers, J.K. Simmons, Henry Z. Steinway, John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland, George Crumb, Robert Shaw, Ben Folds, Luciano Pavarotti, Arthur Fiedler, Michael Tilson Thomas, Burl Ives, Pablo Casals, Vic Firth, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ellis Marsalis, Jr., Branford Marsalis and last but not least, SLU’s own, famed jazz pianist, Bill Evans, who was also a charter member of the Delta Omega Chapter at SLU in 1949.