conservatory, in music, institution for education in musical performance and composition. The term and institution derive from the Italian conservatorio, which in the Renaissance period and earlier denoted a type of orphanage often attached to a hospital (hence the term ospedale also applied to such institutions). The foundlings (conservati) were given musical instruction at state expense; Naples was the centre for boys and Venice for girls. The conservatori were thus the first secular institutions equipped for training in practical music (the choir schools of the Middle Ages were attached to churches, and music in medieval universities was a theoretical subject comparable to mathematics). Institutions such as the Ospedale della Pietà (founded 1346, Venice) and the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo (founded 1589, Naples) either trained or had as faculty members most of the leading composers of 17th- and 18th-century Italian opera.
The first secular school of music for students at large was established in Paris. Founded in 1784, it was reorganized and renamed the Conservatoire National de Musique et d’Art Dramatique in 1795 by the National Convention (the Revolutionary regime of 1792–95) as a result of the efforts of the bandmaster Bernard Sarrette. Its chief purpose was to train musicians to participate in public concerts, fêtes, and celebrations organized by the republic. A state subsidy was granted, admission was by competitive examination, and tuition was free. Later the curriculum was enlarged to include all branches of composition, instrumental and vocal technique, and acting (enabling students to train for the various Parisian opera houses and theatres). Eventually the institution’s political aim was abandoned. Although many famous pupils later revolted against the Conservatoire’s academic severities, it became the acknowledged centre of musical practice and erudition. It was renamed the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in 1957.
Throughout the 19th century the French model was copied, with modifications, in Europe and in the U.S. Conservatories were founded in Milan (1807), Naples (1808), Prague (1811; the first such institution in central Europe), and Vienna (the Akademie, founded in 1817 by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde [Society of Friends of Music]). The composers Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann founded the Leipzig Conservatory (now called the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik) in 1843. Not all of the German schools, however, followed the principles of the Conservatoire nor did all similar institutions in Great Britain, of which the most notable were the Royal Academy of Music (1822; royal charter, 1830) and the Royal College of Music (first called the National Training-School of Music; founded 1882, royal charter 1883). The Royal Irish Academy of Music was founded in 1848 and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1890.
Such institutions began to appear in the United States in the 1860s. Two of the first were those at Oberlin, Ohio (1865), and the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore, founded 1857 (first classes held in 1868). The New England Conservatory of Music and the Boston Conservatory of Music (both in Boston) followed in 1867 and the National Conservatory of Music in New York City in 1885. Other important institutions of music in the United States are the Eastman School of Music at Rochester, N.Y. (1919), and the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia (1924). The Institute of Musical Art (1905) and the Juilliard Graduate School (1924) were united in 1926 to form the Juilliard School of Music, in New York City; this institution became the Juilliard School in 1968. Canadian conservatories include that at Toronto (1886). Australia has the Adelaide Conservatorium (1898).