Purdue News
Purdue News
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October 9, 1986 No Fun Without Music, No Music Without FunBoilermaker Music Makers, by Joseph L. Bennett, Purdue University Press, 182 pp., $19.95 West Lafayette, Ind. – When history remembers music at Purdue University, it will recall the Oliver Twist of the Corn Belt. The man who dared ask for more is Albert P. Stewart. "Boilermaker Music Makers" is his story and, through him, the history of the Purdue Musical Organizations he founded. It's the story of a music instructor yet in his 20s who stood up to a towering university president, won his respect and the hearts of audiences around the world. It's also the story of a man who had no fear of failure. "Perhaps because he knew poverty so intimately as a boy and as a young man, it had lost its ability to intimidate him," writes the author, Joseph L. Bennett, director of University Relations at Purdue. Bennett wove his words around almost 80 years of history and added a full measure of memories captured in photographs to this, his first book. The thread of destiny begins with Stewart's childhood as the second son of a Methodist minister in Battle Ground. It continues with his threadbare adolescence as a hard-working supporter of his widowed mother in Lafayette and with his emergence into adulthood as the darling of the local stage, if not always the textbook. Stewart, now director emeritus of the Purdue Musical Organizations, says he never had a vision, just a little talent, sharp instinct and plenty of audacity. "It took a lot of nerve to do it, but nerve was all we had," Stewart says, recalling his first encounter with Purdue President Edward C. Elliott. The Elliott of 1930 took great satisfaction that Indiana and Purdue universities had separate callings. Indiana had its music and humanities; Purdue had its agriculture and engineering. As Bennett tells it: "Now here was this brash young nobody--too handsome for his own good, hair combed like the dandies of the day, smile too broad to be sincere--asking for money to start a musical group. Elliott sat behind his great wooden desk and listened as Al's eager spiel ran down. Then he stood up and struck the top of the desk with the flat of his hand. 'Never!' he shouted. 'Never as long as I am president, will this university spend one damn penny for music on this campus, young man. Get that through your head. '" Al responded, "'All right, sir, but do you mind if I just use the name Purdue University Choir? Would you object to that if I don't ask for any money?'" Within the year, Elliott would buy robes for the choir. Almost a decade later, Elliott would secure $1.2 million to build a hall of music. The president who vowed not one penny for music now has his name recorded in history over Edward C. Elliott Hall of Music. The book spins through tale after tale. There's the chuckle about how Lillian, the wife of Purdue comptroller R. B. Stewart (no relation to Al), took pity on the music teacher and offered her home for practices. By the end of the first two-hour practice, Al hadn't seen R. B. and asked Mrs. Stewart where her husband was. She replied, "He's upstairs with a sick headache." The next day, R. B. called Al in and gave him nearly carte-blanche in picking a university building in which to practice. There's also the story of the first of a half-century of Purdue Christmas Shows. Only 200 people turned out for the 1933 debut. But word spread until soon five performances sold out annually to 30,000 fans. There's also the story of how the Purdue Musical Organizations came of age in the shadow of World War II. Its all-male Varsity Glee Club bested the best to become a finalist for the top men's glee club in the nation. The applause in Carnegie Hall voted for Purdue, which took second place. The genius behind the success, Bennett says, was Stewart's uncanny ability to read an audience and select just the right song for just the right group at just the right moment. "There aren't too many things I can do really well," Stewart says. "But being an audience is one of them. I can walk into a room and KNOW what will work with THOSE people on THAT night. That's why I never published a program ahead of time." Elliott's blue-chip investment had become the singing ambassadors of Purdue. After the war, they took the magic of the Midwest with them on tour of Europe and into the international limelight. All this from a university without a school of music. The characters in the drama argue that's what makes PMO great. Its singers don't know enough to be intimidated by difficult music. Its directors aren't intimidated by academia. The music comes not from the head, but from the heart. "There's a magic that comes from performing just for the love of it," says William Allen, director of the musical organizations since 1982. "I think that's what Al Stewart gave us. He believed music had to be fun to be good." As Al Stewart likes to say, "There can be no fun without music, and no music without fun." The book is available by sending a check for $23.20 ($22.20 for outside Indiana), payable to Purdue University/PMO Club, to Bill Allen, Purdue Musical organizations, Elliott Hall of Music, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. 47907. Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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