Six years after being disbanded, Dawson Buchwald and David Seymour, seniors studying music education and music production and recording industry studies, and the new founder and co-founder of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, knew Ohio University’s campus needed a community like the freshly revived fraternity.
“Our whole goal is to create a hub for musicianship here in Athens and to really create a good social group for people who want to hang out with other musicians, be around other people with similar ideas and goals,” Seymour said.
The fraternity was originally founded at OU in 1924, but in 2018, due to a lack of interest in OU students it disbanded until 2024. Buchwald and Seymour, who have been friends since being in a freshman learning community together, wanted to change that.
Last year, Buchwald and Seymour began the process of bringing back the fraternity with Assistant Director of Bands Justin McCrary. McCrary is an alum of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, giving them an experienced hand in helping the fraternity become reinstated.
So far, they are on step two of three, finalizing the process by acting as a colony for a few years. A ‘colony’ is a newly established fraternity organization that is recognized by the university, but has yet to receive chapter status, before officially becoming a fraternity.
The idea of re-establishment was first brought up by one of Buchwald and Seymour’s friends from sophomore year. When that friend didn’t come back the next semester, Buchwald was still ready to get the ball rolling.
An aspiring high school band director, Buchwald is involved in Marching 110 where he plays trombone, and was also in a college rock band with Seymour last year named The Talk Show Hostsperforming during Halloween and Milliron Fest last year.
Seymour, also involved in the Marching 110, is more interested in the music production side of the business, hoping to have his own studio one day.
With their differing interests in the music world, Buchwald and Seymour are combining their talents to create a completely new fraternity experience that is not yet available on campus.
“A big part of our organization is the charity aspect of it,” Seymour said. “It’s called Mills Music Mission. The idea and philosophy of the mission is to go around and try to empower the community and people through music. We’ll go around some recovery facilities and put on these free public performances for them to help bring that sort of spirit.”
Seymour expressed his excitement in holding performances at places in the community including nursing homes and public schools. Seymour and Buchwald explained they aim to do service through music.
But for now, the two are starting small by simply raising excitement and involvement for the fraternity.
“The next step is just building on where we’re at right now, moving forward, creating our own traditions, sort of building the fraternity and creating its own identity with events we do,” Seymour said.
The organization will have weekly meetings and rehearsals. Casual hangouts will be hosted by the fraternity Sundays to get to know everyone involved. Buchwald hopes that the group’s performances will show what Sinfonia is about.
“Once we start being seen by people, the number one thing I want them to see is that people in the group are having fun, enjoying themselves, and just enjoy each other’s company,” Buchwald said.
The fraternity’s current members are also bringing their talents to the table in order to further develop the re-establishment of the fraternity. Andrew Falkosky, a sophomore studying acting, is an active member of Phi Mu Alpha.
“Dawson is a very good friend of mine,” Falkosky said. “I found out (about Phi Mu Alpha) through him and he said that I would be very welcomed here and I would be a valuable asset to the fraternity.”
Falkosky is interested in arranging the music the group performs. Although he is passionate about contributing to the fraternity in this way, he is hoping that through the recruiting process, they will find members who are interested in composition as well.
“I’ve mainly been trying to arrange music for it, but I would also like to see if I could get assistance on that,” Falkosky said.
Falkosky and the Phi Mu Alpha Fraternity are welcoming everyone who’s interested in getting involved.
“We want dedicated people,” Falkosky said. “We want people who want to better their lives through music. We want hard-working people, talented people but we’re very welcoming in that regard.”
Although it’s the beginning of the new semester, Buchwald has expectations that he hopes to see play out by the end of the fraternity’s first official year.
“I want to be recognized as some sort of an influence on the musical community in Athens,” Buchwald said. “Right now, we have a decent bit of recognition, but not much to back it up with, because we’ve just been meeting, kind of hanging out together, which is great, but I want to be able to show it to everyone else.”
The fraternity’s first meeting was held in Alden, but they expect the rest of the semester’s rehearsals to be in Glidden. To get involved, the members suggest reaching out to them through the fraternity's Instagram or email account.
