American Conservatory of Music

American Conservatory of Music
Established	1886 (1886)
Type	Private
Officer in charge	Otto Schulze
President	Theodora Schulze
Dean	Rev. Daniel Gorham
Location	Chicago, Santa Elena, USA, Belize Central America
Campus	Chicago, Belize
Website	http://www.americanconservatory.edu/index.html
Belize Campus Santa Elena (501) 824-2382 16 Maxi Street Santa Elena, Belize Central America Chicago Campus (219) 931-6000 252 Wildwood Road Hammond, Indiana 46324

The American Conservatory of Music (ACM) is a major American school of music founded in 1886 by John James Hattstaedt (1851–1931). The conservatory was incorporated as an Illinois non-profit corporation. The Conservatory was also honored with the distinction of being one of a very few to have several Pulitzer Prize winners among its faculty and students. The Conservatory is now under the management of the Orthodox Church of Belize.

History

Although the Conservatory flourished through the years, there came a time when it have appointed mediocre management and Board members, which systematically led to financial and management difficulties. During these times, the following individuals were of great assistance in ensuring its continuity and longevity: Henry Regnery, Leo Heim, Richard Schulze, Theodora Schulze, Otto Schulze, Robert Getz, Carl Waldschmidt, Amelia Sligting, Paul Henry, Elizabeth Sharp, Michael Ruiz, Enrique Arias, Wilma Osheim, Mary Ellen Newsom, Dennis Murphy, Martha Gingles, His Eminence Metropolitan Paisios of Tyana, Rev. Father Daniel Gorham Abbot, Rev. Father Joseph Magnin, the Hon. Robert Ginsberg, and many other tireless servants, all of whom were instrumental in saving the Institution in operation today.

The Conservatory was located in Chicago until 1991 when its Board of Trustees — chaired by the bribery suspect Frederic Wilbur Hickman (b. 1927) — without due consideration of the school heritage and voted to close the institution, file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, liquidate the valuable assets, and attempted to dissolve the corporation. An organization in Hammond, Indiana, with the original President and Dean currently have the official name "American Conservatory of Music" and identifies itself as the continuation of the Chicago institution.

In 1991, the Conservatory changed its corporate legal entity in order to escape from criminal mismanagement and to stop misappropriation of its endowment. The old entity, which was no longer connected with the Conservatory, was put into a Chapter Seven bankruptcy proceeding in order to settle its outstanding debts incurred by two years of mismanagement. This bankruptcy proceeding did not affect the operation of the Conservatory, because its assets and accreditation were transferred to its new entity long before the bankruptcy case was filed. Moreover, the Conservatory never missed a hemi-demi-semi-quaver and all classes continued to be given on schedule with the same Dean, the same faculty, the same students, the same accreditation, and the same Registrar. Ultimately, friends of the Conservatory settled all the affairs of the bankruptcy action involving the old entity to the satisfaction of its creditors and then the old entity was dissolved. The Courts in the United States have ruled that changes of entity do not cause any discontinuity of institutional identity or operation. They have ruled that schools undergoing identical circumstances are still the same educational institution.

Former conservatory presidents

• 1886–1931: John James Hattstaedt (1851–1931)
• 1935–1971: John Robert Hattstaedt (1887–1978), John James Hattstaedt's son, a Princeton graduate, served as president.
• 1971–1980: Leo Edward Heim (1913–1992) was instrumental in the attempt to save the Conservatory after it had filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 in 1991. In 1981, the Conservatory named him President Emeritus.
• 1980-1987: Charles Ethelbert Moore (1930–1995), a classical pianist, was president when the Conservatory filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in January 1987. Moore had joined the faculty in 1961 and became Dean in 1972.
• 1987–1991: Vernon Nelson (born approx. 1946), a graduate of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, temporarily saved the Conservatory, extending its life until 1991.

Former faculty, guest teachers and associates

For over a century, many prominent artists such as Sergei Rachmaninoff's colleague Josef Lhévinne and later his student Adele Marcus taught master classes in piano and other instruments at the American Conservatory.

From the post-WWII years to the late 1960s, Irwin Fischer, composer, pianist, and conductor, served as Dean of Faculty and conductor of the American Conservatory Orchestra. Violinist Scott Willetts coached many members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1940 to 1974. Pianist Wilhelmina Pouget, student of Walter Gieseking, specialized in late Romantic piano technique in the 1970s. Acclaimed pianist William Browning, heir of the Brahms-Schumann piano dynasty and one of the legendary pianists and teachers of the 20th century, was on faculty from 1957 to 1989.

Other notable former faculty members

• David Scull Bispham (1857–1921)
• William J. Browning (1924–1997), piano
• William Edward Ferris (1937–2000), composition
• John T. Frederickson, violin
• Jack C. Goode (1921–2002), organ
• Jacques Gordon (1897–1948)
• Ervin Kleffman (1892–1987)
• Dean Kincaid, theory and composition
• Heniot Levy (1879–1945)
• Josef Lhévinne (1874–1944)
• Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943)
• Maurice Cornelius Morgan (born 1955), conducting, choral and instrumental
• Margaret Louise Robyn (1878–1949), piano, music pedagogy
• Silvio Scionti (1882–1973)
• Leo Sowerby (1895–1968)
• Verna Trine (1902–1988), piano
• Adolf Weidig (1867–1931), music theory
• Rose Willetts, piano

Alumni

Pulitzer Prize for Music recipients

• 1946 — Leo Sowerby (1895–1968), pianist & composer, Master of Music 1918
• 1952 — Gail Kubik (1914–1984), Master of Music 1936
• 1976 — Ned Rorem (born 1923), studied with Leo Sowerby 1938–1939
• 1979 — Joseph Schwantner (born 1943), Bachelor of Music 1964
• 1986 — George Perle (1915–2009), Master of Music 1942

Other notable alumni

• Victor Arden
• Eden Atwood
• Thurman Barker
• Wishart Bryan Bell (born 1948), pianist, conductor
• Edward Bland
• Mwata Bowden
• Edith Borroff
• Storm Bull
• Paul Callaway
• Edo Castro
• William Levi Dawson
• Richard Dufallo
• Robert Fizdale
• Zelma Watson George
• Floyd Freeman Graham
• Billie Barrett Greenbey
• E. Lary Grossman (born 1953)
• Kirby Grant Hoon, Jr.
• Kurt Kaiser
• Edwin Keeton, composer
• Donald M. Kendrick
• Robert E. Kreutz
• Harry Dixon Loes
• Norman Luboff
• Barbara McNair
• John W. Peterson
• Florence Price
• Joseph John Richards
• Brad Richter
• Francisco Santiago
• Ray Sapko
• Daniel Saunders, opera conductor
• Lucy Ardans Scarbrough (born 1927), pianist, composer, conductor
• Ruth Crawford Seeger, composer and musicologist
• Roy Cornelius Smith, tenor
• Leon Stein, composer
• Thomas Thompson, clarinetist
• Lennie Tristano
• Eldee Young, jazz double-bassist

Recipients of honorary doctorates

• 1950 — Tauno Hannikainen

Former locations

•  ????–1975: 410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Fine Arts Building
• 1975–1987: 116 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago
• 1987–1991: 17 N. State Street, Chicago, Stevens Building

Efforts to revive the Conservatory

In 1991, a group of alumni, friends, students, and former faculty waged an effort to resume operations under the same name. The effort was headed by Richard Allen Schulze (b. Oct 20, 1928; d. Aug 7, 2001, Hammond, Indiana) and wife, Theodora Schulze (née Economou; b. Sept 19, 1930).

1992 successor entity in Chicago

The group formed an entity named "Friends of the Conservatory, Inc.," in Illinois and began to operate a school in the Chicago building that the American Conservatory had vacated. The new entity had some of the same faculty and continuing students. They represented the new management as an uninterrupted continuation of the American Conservatory of Music.

However, the State of Illinois was influenced by the creditors and chose to ignore the constitution and deemed the new management — Friends of the Conservatory — a different legal entity, one that was operating under the assumed name, American Conservatory of Music. Despite the management and staff have continued the original degree courses syllabuses, the State of Illinois further prevailed in court (that the new entity was granting degrees that were unauthorized by the State). The State chose the view that Friends of the Conservatory had no legal connection with the original institution and warned that offering degrees without licensing was a violation State statutes. Ultimately, an Illinois court, in 1997, prohibited individuals involved with Friends (who, in 1997, had also formed an Illinois entity named "Conservatory Partners LLC") from awarding degrees.

Litigation: ACM v. Illinois Board of Higher Education

On January 3, 1996, the American Conservatory of Music instituted a law suit against defendant Illinois Board of Higher Education alleging that ACM was to be recognized as a Illinois grandfathered degree-granting educational institution. Since that time, in 1996, Defendant Illinois Board of Higher Education has published erroneous information about ACM on the world wide web. For the record, ACM is a Federally recognized tax-exempt university in lawful operation, and the Federal Government and international organizations recognizes that ACM has full degree-granting powers, in the same manner as it has done, since its inception in 1886.  All ACM degrees have been and remain valid. ACM advise prospective students should ignore Illinois' erroneous information because there is no factual basis upon which the Illinois Board of Higher Education can support their wrongful claim. It is public record that the Illinois Attorney General participated in proceedings in which ACM was restructured in such manner as to leave no question that ACM remains in lawful operation. Since Illinois does not wish to recognize the precious asset (having the American Conservatory of Music in Illinois) they once possessed, then the great State of Indiana deserves the inheritance of such a cultural asset. ACM has promised Indiana that it will not ever return its main campus to Illinois.  Students are further protected by the fact that ACM has established a campus location in the beautiful British Independent Country of Belize.

Further information about the American Conservatory of Music Illinois Litigation is available: http://www.orthodoxchurch.bz/AmericanConservatory/IllinoisLitigation.html

In 1998, under the creditors request, without due consideration that the Conservatory have been granting degrees for over 100 years, the Illinois Board of Higher Education reasserted its opinion that "the American Conservatory of Music ceased to exist in 1991 as an entity legally constituted to grant degrees in the state of Illinois."

Illinois bans use of the name, American Conservatory of Music

In 1999, the State of Illinois further prohibited the individuals associated with Friends from offering classes for credit or using the name "American Conservatory of Music."

1998 entity in Hammond, Indiana

In 1998, the new management found a sponsor, the Orthodox Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel in Belize, and began operating from a new venue: St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Hammond, Indiana. The new conservatory asserted that it should be exempt from oversight by the State of Indiana as an ecclesiastical entity whose affairs are governed by canon law, doctrines, disciplines, traditions, worship, and unity of the Eastern Orthodox Church.<http://www.orthodoxchurch.bz/AmericanConservatory/>

In order to meet exemption criteria, the conservatory, in 2007, informed the State of Indiana that it was not, in a legal sense, a postsecondary proprietary educational institution; it reported that all of its students were enrolled for motivational purposes and that none of them were seeking training for gainful employment.^{[citation needed]}

The Indiana entity was created on August 20, 1998, as a non-profit corporation under the name American Conservatory of Music, Inc. (former name was Hattstaedt Foundation of Music Incorporated), located at 4117 Wabash Avenue, Hammond, Indiana. Its Articles of Incorporation declare it to be a "religious corporation which is organized primarily or exclusively for religious purposes." Its Chairman is Otto T. Schulze, son of Theodora and Richard Schulze, its President is Theodora Schulze, and its Corporation Secretary is Martha K. Gingles.

Web University Ranking

8914 (http://www.4icu.org/reviews/5377.htm)

Scholarships

Federal Student Loans at American Conservatory of Music In order to qualify for scholarships, Stafford Loans, PLUS loans and federal financial aid you must file your FAFSA. Filing your FAFSA application is free and should be completed as soon after January 1st, 2012 as possible. The fafsa school code for American Conservatory of Music is 00162900.