Wilfred Bain

Wilfred Conwell Bain
Wilfred Conwell Bain ca. 1940s courtesy of the University of North Texas Music Library Archives
Born	(1908-07-20)July 20, 1908 Shawville, Quebec
Died	March 7, 1997(1997-03-07) (aged 89) Bloomington, Indiana
Nationality	U.S. (naturalized 1940)
Alma mater	A.B., Houghton College (1929) B.M., Westminster Choir College (1931) M.A., Music Ed., NYU (1936) Ed.D., Mus. Ed., NYU School of Education (1938)
Occupation	Opera workshop director Music educator Music school dean   University of North Texas   Indiana University
Partner(s)	Mary E. Freeman (1905–1993) Betty Myers
Parent(s)	James Alexander Bain Della Hawn (born 1881)

A.B., Houghton College (1929)
B.M., Westminster Choir College (1931)
M.A., Music Ed., NYU (1936)

Wilfred Conwell Bain (January 20, 1908 – March 7, 1997) was an American music educator, a university level music school administrator (former Dean of two major music schools spanning 35 years), and an opera theater director at the collegiate level. Bain is widely credited for rapidly transforming to national prominence both the University of North Texas College of Music as Dean from 1938 to 1947, and later, Indiana University School of Music as Dean from 1947 to 1973. Both institutions are major comprehensive music schools with the largest and second largest enrollments, respectively, of all music schools accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. He was born in Shawville, Quebec, and died in Bloomington, Indiana.

James R. Oestreich, classical music critic for The New York Times, referred to Bain as a legend who lifted the Jacobs School of Music to national prominence from 1947 to 1973.

Created a new model
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:

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. 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).