Tom Alpen was the son of Herr Hugo Alpen, a German immigrant who arrived in Australia in 1858. Hugo Alpen was a highly acclaimed musician and music teacher.
In Sydney, he was appointed as the singing master of the newly established Department of Public Instruction (Department of Education). He then taught at the Fort St and Hurlstone teacher training colleges.
Hugo led massed student choirs in what we would term as school spectaculars these days. To celebrate the inauguration of the Commonwealth on 1 January 1901, he brought together 10,000 school children in Centennial Park to perform his work ‘Federated Australia’.
The family lived at ‘Mozart House’ in Forest Lodge before moving to Strathfield in a house of the same name.
