1920-1932: Presbyterian Beginnings To The Creation of A College
John Finley Williamson founded the Westminster Choir in 1920 at the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio. Convinced that professionally trained musicians could best serve the church, he established the Westminster Choir School in September 1926 with sixty students and a faculty of ten. As the Choir School and its choir's reputation grew, the demand for the School's graduates increased. The graduates came to be known as Ministers of Music, a term coined by Dr. Williamson and still being used today by many church music programs.
As early as 1922, the Choir, then known as the Dayton Westminster Choir, began touring the United States annually and sang in such prominent places as Carnegie Hall (New York City), Symphony Hall (Boston), the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), Orchestra Hall (Chicago) and the White House for President Calvin Coolidge. Years later the Choir also sang for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Westminster Choir made its first commercial recording with RCA Victor in 1926. Subsequently the Choir recorded with major conductors and orchestras.
In 1928, the Westminster Choir and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski made the nation's first coast-to-coast radio broadcast on Cincinnati station WLW. A few years later because of the Choir's growing reputation it made a total of 60 half-hour broadcasts from NBC's New York facilities.
The first European tour took place in 1929 and was sponsored by Dayton, Ohio philanthropist Katharine Houk Talbott and endorsed by Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra. The tour included 26 concerts in major cities of Europe.
Originally a three year program, the Choir School moved to Ithaca College in New York State in 1929 and enlarged its curriculum to a four year program culminating in a Bachelor of Music degree. A major reason for the move involved the need to be able to reach the major cities of Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York by rail. All three were cities that sought the choirs under Williamson. This move ultimately proved unsatisfactory.
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