Westminster Choir College (WCC) is a historic conservatory of music currently operating on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Rider's College of Arts and Sciences, the college under which the historic institution has been reorganized, consists of Westminster Choir College as well as three additional schools. The Choir College was previously an independent school, located first in Dayton, Ohio (1926–1929), then Ithaca, New York (1929–1932), and for most of its history in Princeton, New Jersey (1932–2020). It merged into Rider University in 1992, and subsequent financial issues led to consolidation onto the Rider University main campus. WCC educates students at the undergraduate and graduate levels for careers in music education, voice performance, pedagogy, music theory, composition, conducting, and sacred music. Professional training in musical skills with an emphasis on performance is complemented by studies in the liberal arts. The school's proximity to New York City and Philadelphia provides students with easy access to the musical resources of both cities. History 1920–1932: Presbyterian beginnings to the creation of a college In 1920 John Finley Williamson founded the Westminster Choir at the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio. In 1926, he established the Westminster Choir School. The school started with a faculty of ten, and sixty students. The graduates came to be known as Ministers of Music, a term coined by Williamson and still used today by many church music programs. In 1922, the choir, then known as the Dayton Westminster Choir, began touring the United States annually, singing in Carnegie Hall (New York City), nearby Cincinnati Music Hall (Cincinnati), Symphony Hall (Boston), the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), Orchestra Hall (Chicago) and the White House for President Calvin Coolidge. The Choir made its first commercial recording with RCA Victor in 1926; recordings with other major conductors and orchestras followed. In 1928, the Choir and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski made the nation's first coast-to-coast broadcast on Cincinnati radio station WLW. By a few years later, the Choir made a total of 60 half-hour broadcasts from NBC's New York facilities. On March 9, 1929, the Choir performed at the White House for newly inaugurated President Herbert Hoover. Years later, the Choir also sang for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The first European tour took place in 1929 and was sponsored by Dayton philanthropist Katharine Houk Talbott and endorsed by Walter Damrosch, conductor of the