The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig () is a public university in Leipzig (Saxony, Germany). Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatorium der Musik (Conservatory of Music), it is the oldest university school of music in Germany. The institution includes the traditional Church Music Institute founded in 1919 by Karl Straube (1873–1950). The music school was renamed ″Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy″ after its founder in 1972. In 1992, it incorporated the Theaterhochschule "Hans Otto" Leipzig. Since the beginning there was a tight relationship between apprenticeship and practical experience with the Gewandhaus and the Oper Leipzig, as well as theaters in Chemnitz (Theater Chemnitz), Dresden (Staatsschauspiel Dresden), Halle (Neues Theater Halle), Leipzig (Schauspiel Leipzig) and Weimar (Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar). The university of music and theater is one of 365 places chosen in 2009 by the Cabinet of Germany and the Office of the Representative of German Industry and Trade for the campaign Germany – Land of Ideas. History Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the composer and Music Director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, founded a Conservatory in the city of Leipzig on 2 April 1843. It was financed by a senior civil servant of the Kingdom of Saxony, the Oberhofgerichtsrat Heinrich Blümner (1765–1839), who provided King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony with 20,000 Thaler. The music school's home was in the first Gewandhaus (in the Gewandgäßchen/Universitätsstraße street at the city center, today the city's department store is based there). The musicians of the Orchestra were obligated to act as teaching staff, a tradition that was unbroken until German reunification in 1990. In 1876 the school got permission to change its name to Königliches Konservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig, Royal Conservatory of Music of Leipzig. The new premises at Grassistraße 8 were inaugurated on 5 December 1887. They were built 1885–1887 by the architect Hugo Licht in the music quarter of Leipzig, south-west of the city center. The benefactor was the pathologist Justus Radius. Not until 1924 was the Royal Conservatory renamed into Landeskonservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig, six years after the fall of the Kingdom of Saxony. In the summer term of 1938, 343 male students were enrolled at the Landeskonservatorium. This made the Conservatory the fourth biggest music school in the German Reich after the Universität der Künste Berlin (633 students), the music school of Cologne (406 students) and the school for music and theater of Munich