Oberlin Conservatory of Music
American private college music school
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory of Oberlin College, a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in the United States. It is one of the few American conservatories to be completely attached to a liberal arts college, allowing students the opportunity to pursue degrees in both music and a traditional liberal arts subject via a five-year double-degree program. Like the rest of Oberlin College, the student body of the conservatory is almost exclusively undergraduate.
History
The Oberlin Collegiate Institute was built on 500 acres (2.0 km2) of land, founded in 1833 and became Oberlin College in 1850. In 1867, two years after the Oberlin Conservatory's founding in 1865, the previously separate Oberlin Conservatory became incorporated with the college on a similar grant.
In tandem, the administration claimed that "Oberlin is peculiar in that which is good," notable as the first college and first conservatory in the United States to regularly admit African-American students. Oberlin College's role as an educator of African-American students prior to the Civil War and thereafter is historically significant. Notable is the graduation of William Grant Still, a student who widely became regarded as the "dean of African-American composers." These efforts have helped Oberlin remain committed to its values of freedom, social justice, and service.
It is also the oldest continuously operating coeducational conservatory, since its incorporation with Oberlin College, the first coeducational college.
The public source identifies “Oberlin Conservatory of Music” as american private college music school. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Oberlin, Conservatory and Music.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q750950. VIAF identifies the subject as 146326630. The Library of Congress control number is n88605557. Authority coordinates are 41.291, -82.219. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1865, 1833, 1850 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oberlin Conservatory of Music” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.