[1][2] Named for the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (whose birth name was Fryderyk Chopin and who studied there from 1826 to 1829),[2][a] the University dates from the Music School for singers and theatre actors that was founded in 1810 by Wojciech Bogusławski.

In 1820 it was transformed by Chopin's subsequent teacher, Józef Elsner, into a more general school of music, the Institute of Music and Declamation; it was then affiliated with the University of Warsaw and, together with the University, was dissolved by Russian imperial authorities during the repressions that followed the November 1830 Uprising.

[3] After Poland regained independence in 1918, the Institute was taken over by the Polish state and became known as the Warsaw Conservatory.

The institution's old main building was destroyed during World War II, in the Warsaw Uprising.

It contains 62 sound-proof classrooms; a concert hall (486 seats), the Szymanowski Lecture Theater (adapted for film projection; 155 seats), the Melcer Chamber Music Hall (196 seats and a Walcker organ sampled by Piotr Grabowski), the Moniuszko Opera Hall (53 seats), a rhythmics room, three music-recording and sound-track studios, a tuner's studio, a library and reading room, rector's offices, deans' offices, management offices, guest rooms, the GAMA cafeteria, and doctor's and dentist's clinics.