The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...

in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performance, composition, conducting,

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

and history, and has trained some of the most important figures in international music life. The RCM also conducts research in

performance practice Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of classical music which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in which ...

and performance science. The RCM has over 900 students from more than 50 countries, with professors who include many who are musicians with worldwide reputations. The college is one of the four conservatories of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and a member of Conservatoires UK. Its buildings are directly opposite the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

on Prince Consort Road, next to Imperial College and among the museums and cultural centres of Albertopolis.

History

Background

The Royal College of Music was founded in 1883 to replace the short-lived and unsuccessful National Training School of Music (NTSM). The idea for the NTSM was initially proposed by the Prince Consort decades before the school opened. Conservatoires to train young students for a musical career had been set up in major European cities, but in London the long-established Royal Academy of Music had not supplied suitable training for professional musicians: in 1870 it was estimated that fewer than ten per cent of instrumentalists in London orchestras had studied at the academy.Wright, Davi
"The South Kensington Music Schools and the Development of the British Conservatoire in the Late Nineteenth Century"
''Journal of the Royal Musical Association'', Vol. 130, No. 2 (2005), pp. 236–282 The NTSM opened in 1876, with

Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...

as its principal. Under Sullivan, a reluctant and ineffectual principal, the NTSM failed to provide a satisfactory alternative to the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

and, by 1880, a committee of examiners comprising Charles Hallé, Sir Julius Benedict, Sir Michael Costa, Henry Leslie and Otto Goldschmidt reported that the school lacked "executive cohesion". The following year Sullivan resigned and was replaced by John Stainer. The original plan was to merge the Royal Academy of Music and the National Training School of Music into a single, enhanced organisation. The NTSM agreed, but after prolonged negotiations, the Royal Academy refused to enter into the proposed scheme."The Proposed College for Music"
''The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular'', Vol. 23, No. 467 (January 1882), pp. 17–18 In 1881, with George Grove as a leading instigator and with the support of the Prince of Wales, a draft charter was drawn up for a successor body to the NTSM. The Royal College of Music occupied the premises previously home to the NTSM and opened there on 7 May 1883. Grove was appointed its first director."Royal College of Music"
''The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular'', Vol. 24, No. 484 (June 1883), pp. 309–310 There were 50 scholars elected by competition and 42 fee-paying students.Rainbow, Bernarr and Anthony Kemp
"London – Educational establishments"
''Grove Music Online'', Oxford Music Online, accessed 4 January 2012

Early years

Grove, a close friend of Sullivan, loyally maintained that the new college was a natural evolution from the NTSM. In reality, his aims were radically different from Sullivan's. In his determination that the new institution should succeed as a training ground for orchestral players, Grove had two principal allies: the violinist Henry Holmes and the composer and conductor Charles Villiers Stanford. They believed that a capable college orchestra would not only benefit instrumental students, but would give students of composition the essential chance to experience the sound of their music. The college's first intake of scholarship students included 28 who studied an orchestral instrument. The potential strength of the college orchestra, including fee-paying instrumental students, was 33 violins, five

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

s, six

cellos The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, ...

, one

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

, one

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

, one

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

and two horns. Grove appointed 12 professors of orchestral instruments, in addition to distinguished teachers in other musical disciplines including Jenny Lind (singing),

Hubert Parry Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (27 February 1848 – 7 October 1918), was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Born in Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is ...

(composition), Ernst Pauer (piano), Arabella Goddard (piano) and Walter Parratt (organ). The old premises proved restrictive and a new building was commissioned in the early 1890s on a new site in Prince Consort Road, South Kensington. The building was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield in Flemish Mannerist style in red brick dressed with buff-coloured Welden stone. Construction began in 1892 and the building opened in May 1894. The building was largely paid for by two large donations from Samson Fox, a Yorkshire industrialist, whose statue, along with that of the Prince of Wales, stands in the entrance hall. Grove retired at the end of 1894 and was succeeded as director by Hubert Parry.Young, Percy M
"Grove, Sir George (1820–1900)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2006 accessed 2 November 2010

Later history

Parry died in 1918 and was succeeded as director by Sir Hugh Allen (1919–37), Sir George Dyson (1938–52), Sir Ernest Bullock (1953–59), Sir Keith Falkner (1960–74), Sir David Willcocks (1974–84), Michael Gough Matthews(1985–93), Dame Janet Ritterman (1993–2005) and Professor Colin Lawson (2005-2024). The College's current Director is James Williams, whose tenure began in September 2024. The College's teaching professoriate numbers over 200 musicians, including internationally known figures like Dmitri Alexeev, Martyn Brabbins, Natalie Clein, Danny Driver,

Martin Gatt Martin Gatt (born 1937 in Aberdeen) is a British classical bassoonist. He studied under Archie Camden at the Royal College of Music in London. He served as principal bassoonist of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1958 to 1966, after whi ...

, Chen Jiafeng, Jakob Lindberg, Mike Lovatt, Patricia Rozario, Brindley Sherratt, Ashley Solomon,

Mark-Anthony Turnage Mark-Anthony Turnage (born 10 June 1960) is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Life and career Mark-Anthony Turnage was born in Corringham, Essex on 10 June 1960. Turnage was the eldest of three children. His parents were lov ...

Maxim Vengerov Maxim Alexandrovich Vengerov (; born 20 August 1974) is a Soviet-born Israeli violinist, violist, and conductor. Classic FM has called him "one of the greatest violinists in the world". Vengerov was born in Novosibirsk, the only child of Al ...

, Roger Vignoles, Raphael Wallfisch and Errollyn Wallen as well as principals of the major London orchestras including the London Symphony, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic and the Philharmonia. Since its founding in 1882, the college has been linked with the

British royal family The British royal family comprises Charles III and other members of his family. There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member, although the Royal Household has issued different lists outlining who is considere ...

and its Patron is His Majesty King Charles III. For 40 years

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was al ...

was president; in 1993

Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...

(then Prince of Wales) became president. Opened in 2016, the Royal College of Music’s hall of residence, Prince Consort Village, provides accommodation for more than 400 students and with acoustically treated bedrooms and dedicated practise rooms. The college is a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...

under English law.

Curriculum

The college teaches all aspects of Western

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

from undergraduate to doctoral level. There is a junior department, where 300 children aged 8 to 18 are educated on Saturdays.

Partnership

Since August 2011, RCM has been collaborating with

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA; zh, 南洋艺术学院; ; ) is a publicly-funded post-secondary arts institution in Singapore, and a constituent college of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS) from 2024. NAFA offers courses at high-s ...

, Singapore, and now offers both undergraduate and taught postgraduate degree programmes, jointly conferred by both institutions.

Performance venues

The RCM has a wide variety of concert venues including the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, a 468-seat barrel-vaulted concert hall designed by Blomfield, built in 1901 and extensively restored in 2008–09. The Britten Theatre seats 400, and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986 and is used for opera, ballet, music and theatre. There is also a 150-seat recital hall dating from 1965, as well as several smaller recital rooms, including three organ-equipped Parry Rooms. A £40 million development was completed in 2021 and the estate’s footprint was almost doubled. This included the creation of two new performance spaces: the Performance Hall which seats 140 people, and the Performance Studio which was enhanced in 2023 following a £1.89 million investment from the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts a ...

to incorporate state-of-the-art acoustic and visual performance simulation technologies.

Royal College of Music Collections

The Royal College of Music Museum houses over 14,000 items, representing a range of music-making activities over a period of more than five centuries. Amongst instruments housed in the museum is a clavicytherium, thought to be the world's oldest surviving

keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers that are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital piano ...

, and the earliest known guitar. Following a £3.6 million investment from

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

, the Museum underwent a major redevelopment in 2020–21. Owing partly to the vision of its founders, particularly Grove, the RCM now holds significant Collection Materials, dating from the fifteenth century onwards. These include autograph manuscripts such as

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the Wives of Henry VIII, second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading ...

's Music Book, Chopin's Minute Waltz,

Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

Cello Concerto A cello concerto (sometimes called a violoncello concerto) is a concerto for solo cello with orchestra or, very occasionally, smaller groups of instruments. These pieces have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier. However, unlike instru ...

Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...

's String Quartet No. 48 Op. 64/1 and

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor K491.RCM Library Collections
/ref> More extensive collections feature the music of Herbert Howells and

Frank Bridge Frank Bridge (26 February 187910 January 1941) was an English composer, violist and conductor. Life Bridge was born in Brighton, the ninth child of William Henry Bridge (1845–1928), a violin teacher and variety theatre conductor, formerly a ...

and film scores by Stanley Myers. Among more than 300 original portraits are John Cawse's 1826 painting of Weber (the last of the composer),

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

(1791) and Bartolommeo Nazari's painting of

Farinelli Farinelli (; 24 January 1705 – 16 September 1782) was the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (), a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera. Farinelli ...

at the height of his fame. A recent addition to the collection is a portrait of the Russian composer

Alfred Schnittke Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer. Among the most performed and recorded composers of late 20th-century classical music, he is described by musicologist Ivan Moody (composer), Ivan Moody as a ...

by Reginald Gray. 10,000 prints and photographs constitute the most substantial archive of images of musicians in the UK. The RCM's 600,000 concert programmes document concert life from 1730 to the present day. There are also more than 800 musical instruments and accessories from circa 1480 to the present.

Alumni

Since opening in 1882, the college has had a distinguished list of teachers and alumni, including most of the composers who brought about the " English Musical Renaissance" of the 19th and 20th centuries. Students in the time of Stanford and Parry included Samuel Coleridge-Taylor,

Gustav Holst Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams ( ; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

and John Ireland.Firman, Rosemary
"Stanford, Sir Charles Villiers (1852–1924)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 11 December 2011 Later alumni include Louise Alder, Sir Thomas Allen, Stanley Bate,

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

, Dame Sarah Connolly, Colin Davis, Sir James Galway, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Gwyneth Jones, Rowland Lee, Neville Marriner, Anna Meredith, Hugh McLean, Tarik O'Regan, Gervase de Peyer, Trevor Pinnock, Anna Russell, Dame

Joan Sutherland Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s to the 1980s. She possessed a voice ...

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End theatre, West End and on Broadway theatre, Broad ...

, Julian Lloyd Webber,

James Horner James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside tr ...

, Sir Reginald Thatcher, Michael Tippett and the guitarist

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...

Directors of the RCM

* Sir George Grove (1882) * Sir Hubert Parry (1895) * Sir Hugh Allen (1918) * Sir George Dyson (1938) * Sir Ernest Bullock (1953) * Sir Keith Falkner (1960) * Sir David Willcocks (1974) * Michael Gough Matthews (1985) * Dame Janet Ritterman (1993) * Colin Lawson (2005) *James Williams (since 2024)

Awards

Awards include ARCM (Associate), LRCM (Licentiate) and FRCM (Fellow). Each year the Royal College of Music bestows a number of honorary degrees, memberships and fellowships on individuals who have made an exceptional contribution to life at the RCM and the wider musical community.

References

External links

Official websiteOfficial YouTube channelVirtual tour of the Royal College of Music
provided by

Google Arts & Culture Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world, operated by Google. It utilizes high-re ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Royal College Of Music Royal colleges Music schools in London Higher education colleges in London Performing arts education in London Universities and colleges established in 1882 Charities based in London Museums in the City of Westminster Music museums in London 1882 establishments in England Arthur Blomfield buildings Education in the City of Westminster Universities UK

History

Background

Early years

Later history

Curriculum

Partnership

Performance venues

Royal College of Music Collections

Alumni

Directors of the RCM

Awards

See also

References

External links