Stern Conservatory - History

History

It was originally founded in 1850 as the Berliner Musikschule by Julius Stern, Theodor Kullak and Adolf Bernhard Marx. Kullak withdrew from the conservatory in 1855 in order to create a new academy of sculpture and three-dimensional art. With Marx's withdrawal in 1856, the conservatory came exclusively under the Stern family and adopted its name. In 1894 it was taken over by Gustav Hollaender (the uncle of film composer Friedrich Hollaender), who moved the school's location to the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall on Bernburger Strasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

In the course of the Gleichschaltung process, the Stern Academy in 1936 was renamed Konservatorium der Reichshauptstadt Berlin controlled by the Nazi regime. Gustav Hollaender's heirs were disseized, but for a few years they were able to run a "Jewish Private Music School Hollaender" until they were deported and murdered in 1941.

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the school was again renamed as the Städtisches Konservatorium (City Conservatory) in what was to become West Berlin. In 1966 it was merged with the public Akademische Hochschule für Musik into the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (Berlin State School of Music and the Performing Arts), since 2001 the Berlin University of the Arts.