Harvard Musical Association

The Harvard Musical Association is a private charitable organization founded by Harvard University graduates in 1837 for the purposes of advancing musical culture and literacy, both at the University and in the city of Boston. Though initially a spin-off of the Pierian Sodality, the Association broke its ties with Harvard soon after its founding. The Association's most important notable accomplishments include the creation of the country's finest music library of the time, the sponsorship of the first professional and public chamber music series in the United States, the erection of the Boston Music Hall, and the formation of the orchestra which ultimately gave rise to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Association's library catalog may be searched on OCLC with the initials HVDMA.

In July 1837, the Pierian Sodality, a society of musically inclined Harvard undergraduates, held its annual meeting. They proposed the organization of a new society, the chief object of which would be "...the promotion of musical taste and science in the University...to enrich the walls of Harvard with a complete musical library...and to prepare the way for regular musical instruction in the College." By general agreement, and with the help of various past members, the organization now known as The Harvard Musical Association was created at a subsequent meeting on August 30, 1837 under the name "The General Association of Past and Present Members of the Pierian Sodality". The name was shortened in 1840.

The new Association, advocating the teaching of music at Harvard, sent the following series of resolutions to Josiah Quincy, Harvard's president at that time.

Proposals from outsiders for the improvement of the University were considered presumptuous and Quincy never acknowledged that he had received the document. It was not until 1862, when John Knowles Paine was appointed Harvard's first professor of music, that music became an established part of the curriculum. In light of the College's attitude and decreasing undergraduate participation, the membership agreed not to mention Harvard at its meetings (a ban that remained in effect for twenty-four years) and turned its capacities toward the advancement of music in Boston.

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