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Royal Academy of Music

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The Royal Academy of Music is a music school in London, England and one of the leading music institutions in the world. It was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 and in 1830 was granted a Royal Charter by King George IV 'to promote the cultivation of the science of music and to afford facilities for attaining perfection in it by assisting with general instruction all persons desirous of acquiring knowledge thereof'. Many important musicians have studied at the Academy since then.

The Academy

The Academy is situated on Marylebone Road in central London, adjacent to Regent's Park. Facilities, which include the 450-seat Duke's Hall, the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre and two smaller concert spaces, were expanded in 2001 with the opening of the new 150-seat David Josefowicz recital hall and the York Gate Collections, a public museum of musical instruments and artefacts from the Academy's collections. The Junior Academy, for under-18s, takes place every Saturday.

The library has over 160,000 items, with a large stock of books and sheet music including significant collections of early printed and manuscript materials and audio facilities. It also houses archives dedicated to Sir Arthur Sullivan and a Sir Henry Wood. Among the Library's most valuable possessions are the manuscripts of Purcell's The Fairy Queen (lost for many years), Sullivan's The Mikado, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis and Serenade to Music and the newly-discovered Handel Gloria. A grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund has assisted in the purchase of the Robert Spencer Collection — a set of Early English Song and Lute music, as well as a fine collection of lutes and guitars. The York Gate Collections now display many of these items. The Orchestral Library has about 4,500 sets of orchestral parts. Other collections include the libraries of Sir Henry Wood and Otto Klemperer.

The Academy has students from over 50 countries, follow diverse programmes including instrumental performance, conducting, composition, jazz, musical theatre and Opera. The Academy enjoys an established relationship with King's College London, particularly the Department of Music, whose students receive instrumental tuition at the Academy. In return, many students at the Academy take advantage of the range of Humanities choices at King's, and its extended academic musicological curriculum.

The current Principal is the American scholar Curtis Price.

Student Performances and Festivals

Academy students perform regularly in the Academy's concert venues, and also nationally and internationally under such conductors as Sir Colin Davis, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Christoph von Dohnányi, Sir Charles Mackerras, James MacMillan and Trevor Pinnock. In September 2005, Sir Colin Davis conducted an orchestra which combined students from the Academy and New York's Juilliard School at the BBC Proms.

The Academy collaborates with other conservatoires world-wide, including participating in the SOCRATES student and staff exchange programme. In 1991 the Academy introduced a fully-accredited degree in Performance Studies, and in September 1999, it became a full constituent college of the University of London, in both cases becoming the first UK conservatoire to do so.

The Academy regularly celebrates the work of a living composer with a festival in the presence of the composer. Previous composer festivals at the Academy have been devoted to the work of Witold Lutosławski, Michael Tippett, Krzysztof Penderecki, Olivier Messiaen, Hans Werner Henze, Luciano Berio, American composers including Elliott Carter, Academy graduates, Alfred Schnittke, György Ligeti, British and American film composers, Franco Donatoni, Russian composers including Galina Ustvolskaya, Arvo Pärt, György Kurtág and Mauricio Kagel.

In February-March 2006, an Academy festival celebrated the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, who first visited London 175 years earlier in 1831. The festival included a recital by Academy professor Maxim Vengerov, who performed on Paganini's own Cannone Guarnerius violin.

Courses

The Royal Academy of Music offers training from pre-college level (Junior Academy) to PhD.

People

Notable alumni

Notable past and present teachers

In 1999, the Academy became a full member of the largest British university, the University of London.

York Gate Collections

York Gate was designed in 1822 as part of the main entrance to Regent’s Park, and was an important feature in John Nash’s architectural designs for Regency London. The interior of York Gate was largely destroyed by bomb damage in the 1940s, but the Nash exterior has Grade 1 listed building status. The Royal Academy of Music moved to Marylebone Road in 1911, and held a lease on part of York Gate during the 1920s and 1930s. A major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has enabled the Academy to acquire and refurbish this magnificent building to house studios and practice rooms and the Academy's museum, The York Gate Collections.

The Royal Academy of Music has a collection of more than 200 stringed instruments from the violin family. These have been acquired for the benefit of students and recent leavers and they are maintained in playing order by the Academy's resident luthier and include several Stradivari, Amatis and Guarneris including:

  • Stradivari, ‘Habeneck’ violin, c1734
  • Stradivari, ‘Joachim’ violin, 1698
  • Stradivari, ‘Maurin’ violin, 1718
  • Stradivari, violin, c1666
  • Stradivari, ‘Markevitch’ cello, 1709
  • Stradivari, ‘Marquis de Corberon’ cello, 1726
  • Stradivari, violin, c.1727
  • Stradivari, ‘Kustendyke’ violin, 1699
  • Stradivari, ‘Archinto’ viola, 1696
  • Stradivari, `Viotti´ex-Bruce violin, 1709
  • Antonio and Girolamo Amati, five-string cello, c.1600
  • Antonio and Girolamo Amati, violin, 1629
  • Nicolò Amati, violin, 1662
  • Girolamo Amati II, violin, 1671
  • Andrea Guarneri, violin, c1665
  • Francesco Rugeri, cello, 1695
  • Vincenzo Rugeri, violin, 1705

The galleries display materials from the Academy’s collections of instruments, archives, manuscripts and images. The York Gate galleries are also considered a 'living museum', acting as a showcase for the work of performers, composers, instrument makers and scholars from a wide range of musical and other relevant disciplines.

Other Collections: Foyle Menuhin archive, Jenny Lind (1820-1887) Collection, David Munrow (1942-1976)Collection, the Priaulx Rainier (1903-1986) Collection and The McCann Collection.

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