| Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music |
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|---|---|
| Motto | Excellence... from Bach to Broadway |
| Established | 1899 |
| Type | Conservatory of Music |
| Religious affiliation | United Methodist Church |
| Director | Peter Landgren |
| Academic staff | 24 full-time and 36 adjunct faculty[1] |
| Students | 260[2] |
| Location | Berea, Ohio, United States of America |
| Campus | Baldwin-Wallace College |
| Former names | Baldwin Institute |
| Nickname | The Con |
| Affiliations | Riemenschneider Bach Institute |
| Website | BW Conservatory |
The Baldwin–Wallace College Conservatory of Music is part of Baldwin-Wallace College which is located in Berea, Ohio. The main building is Kulas Hall. The Conservatory is home to the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival, the oldest collegiate Bach Festival in the United States.
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The undergraduate-only conservatory was founded in 1898 by Dr. Albert Riemenschneider.[3] Before this time, music classes were offered at the Baldwin Institute for one dollar extra per term. In 1912, land donated by the citizens of Berea was used to expand the institution and improve the facilities for music. The Kulas Musical Arts Building was constructed, housing a $25,000 pipe organ. Later, the Conservatory would expand into an adjacent residence hall (Merner-Pfeiffer Hall) and an enclosed bridge was constructed connecting the two buildings.[4]
The main conservatory buildings include Kulas Musical Arts Building, Merner-Pfeiffer Hall and Hanson Hall. Having outgrown its existing facilities, the Conservatory has embarked on a expansion and renovation project and in August 2008 acquired the adjacent First Congregational United Church of Christ building, was renovated to house conservatory programs and attached to Merner-Pfeiffer Hall via a new connecting structure. The connecting structure was named Boesel Musical Arts Center.[5] The expansion opened in 2011.[6]
The Ferne Patterson Jones Music Library is located in the basement of Merner-Pfeiffer Hall. The library contains nearly 40,000 items, including approximately 13,000 volumes of printed music.
The Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music host the first Collegiate Bach Festival in the Nation. As well, the festival carries the title for the oldest collegiate Bach festival in America.[7] The festival was founded in 1932 by music educator Albert Riemenschneider and his wife Selma. The festival rotates Bach's four major works ~ the B-minor Mass, the St. John Passion, the St. Matthew Passion and the Christmas Oratorio ~ every four years in sequence. Since the inception of the Festival, Baldwin-Wallace's vocal and instrumental students perform the major choral and orchestral works with a cast of internationally renowned vocal soloists, faculty and local professionals.[8] Today the program has become a three-day, multi-event.
Rent performed in the spring of 2011. The conservatory presented the Puccini and Larson works in repertory, for the first time in the world, in February 2011 with nearly 80 students from the music theater and voice departments. Some singers performed in both productions. Sharing the same set, "Boheme," updated to the 1930s, received six performances during the run Feb. 15-27, 2011, at B-W's John Patrick Theatre, while "Rent" had 10 performances.[9]
In 2007, Baldwin-Wallace was selected as One of Six Pre-Release Pilot Productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. The running had 12 performances and had more than 6,000 and had a cast of more than 50. As well the performances had a 35-piece orchestra and a production staff of nearly 100 students.[10]
While there are no plans at this time to release Phantom to the stock and amateur market, we want to be fully prepared for when that great day arrives. What we learn from the production at Baldwin-Wallace College and five other sites we've chosen will help us with the process of bringing the longest running musical in Broadway history to theaters across the country.
—Charlie Scatamacchia, vice president for R&H Theatricals [11]
The production was groundbreaking on the fact that it provided R&H Theatricals with the roadmap for future local stagings of Phantom across America.[12]
The Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music has many renowned alumni and faculty. Almost fifty percent of the faculty are members of The Cleveland Orchestra.