 Following the retirement of Richard Wait, a Boston lawyer, as president of the association in 1979, and in light of his unprecedented thirty-one years in office, the concert hall on the first floor was named in his honor as the Richard Wait Room.Drawing its initial members from former players of instruments in the Pierian Sodality (now the Harvard–Radcliffe Orchestra) and later from others who in adult life continued to practice their instruments, it is not surprising that members of the association should have participated in numerous orchestras and ensembles.Notable among these was the Harvard Alumni Orchestra which met under the direction of Jacques Hoffman in the 1920s, giving several public concerts.