Mannes College of Music

775 across two divisions:

Mannes School of Music /ˈmænᵻs/ is a music conservatory in The New School. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School campus in Arnhold Hall at 55 W. 13th Street.

As written on its website: "Mannes School of Music is dedicated to advancing the creative role of music in all aspects of a rapidly changing society. Mannes seeks to develop citizen artists who engage with the world around them in and through music, in traditional, new, and emergent forms of practice."

Originally called The David Mannes Music School, it was founded in 1916 by David Mannes, concertmaster of the New York Symphony Orchestra, and his wife Clara Damrosch, sister of Walter Damrosch, then conductor of that orchestra and Frank Damrosch. The Damrosch and Mannes families were perhaps the most important music families in America at that time, with David Mannes emerging as one of the first American born violin recitalists to achieve significant status. David Mannes was the director of the Third Street Music School Settlement as well as founder of Colored Music School Settlement, all prior to founding the Mannes School. The School was originally housed on East 70th Street (later occupied by the Dalcroze School), a larger campus was created out of three brownstones on East 74th Street, in Manhattan's Upper East Side. After 1938, the school was known as the Mannes Music School, in recognition of the broader course of study that expanded the school well beyond that of a community music school, including the three-year Artist Diploma. When Clara died in 1948, their son Leopold Mannes became president, endowing the school with his fortune from co-inventing Kodachrome film. In 1953 the school began offering a bachelor of science degree and changed its name to the Mannes College of Music. In 1960 it merged with the Chatham Square Music School. In 1984 the school moved to larger quarters on West 85th Street. In 1989 Mannes joined The New School, whose five schools include Parsons School of Design, Eugene Lang College, and School of Drama. In 2005, the New School administration changed the name to Mannes College: the New School for Music. In 2015, the university renamed it Mannes School of Music, and moved it to Arnhold Hall in the West Village. It is now part of the College of Performing Arts at The New School, which also includes the School of Drama and the School of Jazz. Students in any of the three schools of the College of Performing Arts can take courses in the three schools (Drama, Jazz, Mannes), no matter which school they are directly enrolled in, expanding the opportunities for self-directed study.