The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California, United States. As of 2021, it had 480 students.
History
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music was founded in 1917 by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead as the Ada Clement Piano School. In 1923, the name was changed to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1956 the Conservatory moved from Sacramento Street to 1201 Ortega Street, the home of a former infant shelter. It resided there for fifty years, before moving to its next location at 50 Oak Street in 2006.
In 2020, the SFCM added the new Bowes Center at 200 Van Ness Avenue (across from Davies Symphony Hall), a 12-story building that includes dorms (eight floors) with acoustic insulation for 400 of its students, 27 rent-controlled apartments for residents of the older building that was replaced by the construction, and some public performing spaces, including a penthouse concert room with views towards the north and west. The Bowes Center's $200 million cost was largely funded by donors, including $46.4 million from the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation. The San Francisco Chronicle's architecture critic John King characterized the building's design as "[pushing] against the strict rules of the historic district but [respecting] the air of gravitas. For starters, the building is skinned in translucent glass that conceals insulation and the structural frame — a touch that adds a milky visual depth ..." As of 2021, the Bowes Center was envisaged to fully open to the public in February 2022.
In 2020, SFCM announced a partnership with the talent management company Opus 3 Artists, and in May 2022 it acquired the Dutch classical music label, Pentatone, funded by a private donor. The music website "Classical Voice" described this "combination of a music-education organization with two professional music businesses" as "unusual."
Leaders
Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead, 1917–1925
Ernest Bloch, 1925–1930
Ada Clement and Lillian Hodghead, 1930–1951
Albert Elkus, 1951–1957
Robin Laufer, 1957–1966
Milton Salkind, 1966–1990
Stephen Brown, 1990–1991
Milton Salkind (Acting President), 1991–1992
Colin Murdoch, 1992–2013
David Stull, 2013–present
Notable faculty
Jeffrey Anderson (tuba) Elinor Armer (composition) Alexander Barantschik (violinist and Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony) Dusan Bogdanovic (composer and guitarist) Luciano Chessa (composer, music history and literature) David Conte (composer) Jacques Desjardins (composer) Mason Bates (composer) Patricia Craig (voice) Eugene Izotov (oboe) Mark Lawrence (trombone) Susanne Mentzer (voice) Garrick Ohlsson (piano) David Tanenbaum (guitar) Deborah Voigt (voice) Indre Viskontas (soprano)
Notable alumni
Barbara Eden (singer) Léopold Simoneau (tenor) Peter Scott Lewis (composer) Miguel del Aguila (composer) Isaac Stern (violinist) Aaron Jay Kernis, Pulitzer Prize winning and Grammy Award-winning composer, member of the Yale School of Music faculty