In 1867 Clara Baur founded the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Miss Nourse's School for Young Ladies, offering classes in voice and piano. The Conservatory, conceived and nurtured as an entrepreneurial venture, catered overwhelmingly to well-bred young women. Miss Baur strove to create a musically serious establishment on par with European institutions, but the Conservatory's enrollment and curriculum was predominantly feminine, including courses in music as well as social graces, languages and posture.

The College of Music of Cincinnati, founded in 1878, opened with 500 day and evening students and classes were held in Dexter Hall, which was adjacent to the new Music Hall. Theodore Thomas, famed conductor and one of America's premier musical influences, was hired for $10,000 a year as the College's first director. He recruited some of the most talented faculty from around the world. The College prospered and by 1884 it moved into its first permanent building, The Odeon. It had a 1,500-seat theater with a pipe organ and 24 practice rooms, and was one of the first American schools of music with its own concert hall.