[3] Putting talent aside, Bain strongly felt that a music degree from a comprehensive music school that was embedded within a liberal arts university was a more powerful degree (from an interdisciplinary, rounding perspective), for both undergraduate and graduate students.

While at North Texas, and more so while at Indiana University, Bain not only stressed opera, he built enrollments, quality, and performance-frequency to levels never witnessed in their respective regions (audiences were, of course, familiar with professional touring companies, such as the Charles Wagner Company).

Bain viewed opera as the "perfect vehicle for the musical experience – for the student, for the faculty, and for the audience."

Bain believed that, at Indiana, he had built a great music school, in part because of its size, which allowed it to achieve the critical mass, the power and drive of a faculty and hundreds of talented students.

[4] When the Musical Arts Center at Indiana officially opened in April 1972, it was the first of its kind at a university.

Although the Met seats 3,700 while IU's hall seats 1,450, Bain regarded it as an advantage because (i) it makes possible a more intimate theatrical experience for the audience, (ii) it doubles the need for performances (good for double casting and student musicians needing experience), and (iii) it puts less strain on young voices.

[10] In May 1918, Bain immigrated to the United States with his parents, crossing the Canadian-American border at Ogdensburg, New York.

On November 27, 1941, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen during a ceremony in Federal Court in Sherman, Texas[11] He later married Elisabeth Bain (aka Betty Myers Bain, née Elisabeth Perkins; born 1918); widow of John Holmes Myers, PhD, CPA (1915–1993), former Indiana University Professor Emeritus Accounting.