The Cortlandt School of Performing Arts, Mohegan Lake
Photo credit: Neal Rentz
Music has played an important role in the life of Ossining resident Carol Arrucci, and she and her husband, Ray, are sharing her passion at their two locations of The Cortlandt School of Performing Arts.
Part of Carol Arrucci’s responsibilities is teaching piano and voice. Ray Arrucci, who is an actor, is responsible for most of the administrative duties of the two schools. Combined, the two schools have 28 instructors.
The business’ first location was in Croton, which is still open with the same name. The couple opened their second school in Mohegan Lake 18 months ago in a small location off Route 6.
“We picked a small location just to test the waters up here to see if there was interest,” Carol Arrucci recalled last week. “And we got really full really fast.”
With the significant number of students coming to the second location in Mohegan Lake, the co-owners moved across the street to the current location at 1950 E. Main St. last spring.
Arrucci said many of her students came from the Mohegan Lake and Ossining areas to the Croton facility. “Our rooms were getting really full” and she and her husband decided to open a second location. “We discovered that there was need up here,” she said.
Many of her young students are enrolled in the Lakeland, Yorktown and Putnam Valley school districts, as well as living in Mahopac. The schools offer individual musical instrument lessons for youths and adults, as well as training youths for musical theater productions.
One of Ray Arrucci’s most notable works was his involvement as an extra in the 2015 HBO miniseries “Show Me a Hero,” about the turmoil in Yonkers over a controversial federal housing desegregation case.
Carol Arrucci was a middle school music teacher in the Hendrick Hudson School District for 25 years. “I know all the music teachers in the area,” she said.”
She also was musical director for several community theater productions and was a conductor. One of her career highlights was working on the Broadway production of “Joseph and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in 1993. She was the children’s chorus director. She described working on Broadway as an “amazing” experience. About 70 choruses of children auditioned, she said, adding it took less than two months to prepare the show for opening night. “It was a very condensed schedule,” she said. “I taught them all their music.”
On opening night of the Broadway show, “I was crying. I was very excited. I couldn’t contain myself,” Arrucci recalled. “It was like a dream, a dream come true.”
The Cortlandt School of Performing Arts is located at 1950 E. Main St. (Route 6) in Mohegan Lake. For more information, call 914-402-4250, send an e-mail to CortArts@yahoo.com or visit CortArts.com. The school has a related second location at 24 Old Albany Post Rd. in Croton.
