Providing the finest performing arts education for children and adults since 1976.
About the Mozartina Conservatory
The Mozartina Musical Arts Conservatory, the first music and dance school in Tarrytown, NY, was established in 1976 by Berthold F. Ringeisen PhD and Helen Ringeisen to provide the finest professional music and dance instruction by renowned artist teachers in a stimulating environment.
Berthold, born and raised in Germany and a recipient of a Fulbright Travel Grant, attended Yale University on full scholarship, The University of Heidelberg, Columbia University, and New York University. A language and humanities professor at Marymount College for over forty years, he was fluent in ten languages and also spoke the universal language of music, proficient in the oboe, piano, recorder, trumpet, voice, and zither. Helen Ringeisen, a pianist, was born in her grandfather’s hospital in Durango, Colorado to a long line of physicians. She received her training from the University of Colorado and later from Alton Jones and Edwin Hughes of the Juilliard School in New York City. Berthold met Helen while they were studying in Colorado and he maintained that the classical music strapped to the back of Helen’s bicycle was what caught his attention. At least that’s the story he stuck to …
Set on several park-like acres of sprawling lawn and specimen trees, the music school occupies an 1850’s manor house of sixteen rooms and a carriage house that once sheltered horses and carriages in days gone by. Over the past four decades, individual and group music education has been offered for children and adults, and the distinguished teachers, mostly performing artists with degrees from such schools as Eastman School of Music, the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Mannes School of Music, have been inspiring students to pursue careers in music or to carry the joy of music with them for the rest of their lives.
In 1980, the Ringeisens rescued the historic 1885 Tarrytown Music Hall from demolition by riskily placing their home and school up as collateral so that the building could be purchased and renovated by the nonprofit Friends of the Mozartina. If the theater had failed, they would have lost everything they owned and this almost came to pass several times. Together with other arts enthusiasts, they operated the theater on a volunteer basis for 23 years. Today, The Music Hall is an iconic historic building and a nationally recognized venue, offering the best in music, theater, dance, film and education and attracting over 100,000 people, including 25,000 children, from all over the tri-state area annually. As a cultural destination and economic engine for the region, TMH pumps over $6.8 million every year into the local economy through visitor-related spending, according the Arts and Economic Calculator. In 2022, The Music Hall was the first establishment in the district to be added to the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry during its inaugural year by New York State Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and in 2025, the Music Hall was honored by ArtsWestchester for the second time.