| Peter W. Dykema | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1873 |
| Died | 1951 |
| Education | BL (1895) University of Michigan, ML (1896) University of Michigan, (1904-1905) Institute of Musical Art |
| Occupation | Music Education |
Peter W. Dykema (1873–1951) was an important force in the growth of the Music Supervisors National Conference and the music education profession. Although he was not one of the founding members of the organization, he attended his first meeting in 1908 and was listed as a new member in 1913. That year, he addressed the body at the request of then-president Henrietta Baker Low, reading a paper called "The Effect of the Festival and Pageant Revival on the Teaching of Music." Before this time, Dykema had been active in the Music Teachers National Association and the National Education Association Department of Music Education. Appropriately, Dykema also served as national president of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national men's music fraternity, from 1922-1928. He also served as 1924-25 chairman of the Kiwanis International Committee on Music.
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After his 1913 speech, Dykema quickly became an active member in the Conference, and became an active member after his presidential term ended in 1917. He was perhaps best known for his position as the editor of the Conference journal, first called The Bulletin and renamed The Music Supervisors Journal in 1915. Dykema used the publication to keep members informed about the organization and the profession, writing frequent columns about such topics as community singing, musical tests, new movements in music education, and issues within the Conference.
Although Dykema did not have a formal degree, he organized choirs at all the schools where he worked, included arts in his classes, and promoted music education in his faculty positions at the university level. When he taught high school English, he included a unit on arts education, and he developed one of the first music appreciation courses in the country. During his tenure at Teachers College, Columbia University, he increased music education course requirements for the master's degree and helped develop the first doctoral program in the music education department.
Dykema promoted music making and music education wherever he went. He was known as an inspiring choir leader and untiring worker, continuing to travel, write and lecture about music after he retired from his position at Teachers College in 1940. Heavily influenced by a Dutch Calvinist background that included family and church singing, Dykema advocated community music, believing that towns and cities should insure that their populations have access to musical groups, performance halls, and competent directors. He thought it was important that adults should have opportunities to study instruments as beginners, and he urged teachers to foster such a love of music that students would continue playing and singing after compulsory lessons had ended.
Considered one of the most influential leaders in the Fraternity's history, Dykema was elected as an honorary member of the Fraternity's Alpha Chapter at the New England Conservatory in Boston in 1917 while serving as president of what is now the Music Educators National Conference. Three years later, he was elected an honorary member of the Beta Chapter at the Combs College of Music in Philadelphia. He was a member of the class that chartered the Phi Chapter at the University of Wisconsin in 1921, and was elected as a national honorary member (Alpha Alpha Chapter) in 1932. Based on the records compiled by former supreme historian Thomas Larrimore, it appears that Dykema holds the record for the most multiple chapter memberships.
As a faculty member at Teachers College of Columbia University, he maintained close involvement with the Beta Gamma Chapter, where he served on the faculty after leaving Wisconsin. Through his influence, many men associated with music education on the national level came into Fraternity membership. He served as supreme president from 1922 to 1928, during which time the Fraternity essentially doubled its number of active chapters across the country. After leaving office as supreme president, he served in other national capacities for a decade or so. He is credited with essentially saving the Fraternity from extinction through the administrative restructuring that took place under his leadership (which involved dividing the Fraternity into provinces and the appointment of province governors, one of the original of whom was Thomas E. Dewey. Through his involvement with the Music Teachers National Association and the National Association of Schools of Music, the Fraternity came into close collaboration with these organizations, which had a lasting influence on the Fraternity's focus on music advocacy for decades. Dykema served as chair of the 1931 edition of Sinfonia Songs. Several of his songs are included in the current songbook published in 1998, as are several that had previously appeared in the Twice 55 Community Songs series edited by Dykema.
Dykema died from a heart attack at his home in Hastings, New York on Sunday, May 13, 1951. His funeral was held in St. Paul's Chapel (Columbia University) on the campus of Columbia University in New York City. The eulogy, written by former Sinfonia national president Norval Church, was delivered by Columbia's chaplain, James A. Pike. Dykema's ashes were scattered at Lake Ompah, his favorite wilderness retreat, in Ontario, Canada.