Hartt Celebrates its 90th Anniversary


Photo: Dean Aaron Flagg and family at The Hartt School's Gala Celebration on October 16, 2010.

The Hartt School celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2010. Founded as Julius Hartt, Moshe Paranov, and Associated Teachers in 1920, Hartt has grown from a small group of instructors and students into a major center of music, theatre, and dance education.

The school has flourished despite experiencing the Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam era, recessions, cutbacks, globalization, technological innovations, recent economic events, and a constantly changing student body.

During 2010 and 2011 this blog will feature a series of vignettes highlighting events and individuals in the history of Hartt. The blog begins in 2010 and will move backward to Hartt’s earliest days as a pioneering group of dedicated musicians.

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Marin Ireland Receives The Hartt School Alumni Award, 2010



Photo: Marin Ireland ’00 (Hartt) with Theatre Division faculty member Henry Fonte (left) and Hartt Dean Aaron Flagg (right). Ireland received The Hartt School Alumni Award at Hartt's commencement ceremony in May 2010.

Ireland was a member of Hartt's 2000 millennial class and a member of the first graduating class of actor training students (Theatre Division). Hartt expanded its offerings in the 1990s to include majors in theatre and dance as well as in music.

As a successful and accomplished actor, Ireland sets an example of professional accomplishment for more recent graduates. She was nominated for a Tony Award for “Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play” in 2009 for her role in Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty. In addition to her work in theatre, Ireland has appeared in many television shows including Law and Order and Law and Order Special Victims Unit.

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Hartt Creates New Spaces from an Old structure, 2009

Hartt’s Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center opened in September 2009. The building is an adaptive reuse of the former Thomas Cadillac distributorship that had stood empty on Albany Avenue adjacent to the University campus for many years.

Famed industrial architect Albert Kahn designed the original 1929 building, which formed a solid basis for adaptation. The renovation was designed by Smith Edwards Architects and brought together the goals of urban planning; neighborhood revitalization; and green, sustainable architecture. The design received many awards and is considered a model of university planning.

The center features state-of-the-art classrooms and performance spaces incorporating new educational methods and technological innovations. The Hartt School has come a long way since its start in a private house in Hartford’s West End

The Handels are long-time supporters of the University and numerous other institutions. Mort Handel is the chairman of the board of Marvel Entertainment. He has been a trustee of The Hartt School and a regent of the University of Hartford for two decades. Irma Handel is a trustee of the Hartford Art School.

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West Side Story, 2002

In February 2002 The Hartt School presented West Side Story, Hartt's first all-school performance since becoming an integrated performing arts conservatory of music, dance, and theatre.

Rob Ruggiero, associate artistic director of TheaterWorks in Hartford, Conn., directed the production. Students from the Hartt music, theatre, and dance programs were accompanied by the Hartt Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Morris, director of music for the Theatre Division.


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