Royal College of Music
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The Royal College of Music is a prestigious music school located in Kensington, London.
Founded in 1882 as a successor to the National Training School for Music by the then-Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), the school opened in 1883 with George Grove as its director. It moved to its present location in the Albertopolis cultural quarter, next to Imperial College London and opposite the Royal Albert Hall in 1894. In the same year Hubert Parry became director, remaining until 1918. The current director is Dr. Colin Lawson.
The college teaches all aspects of western classical music from undergraduate to doctorate level. There is a Junior Department, where 300 children aged 8 to 18 are educated on Saturdays. It also has an extensive museum of musical instruments which is open to the public.
The college building was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield.
[edit] Museum of instruments
The College's Museum of Instruments has a collection of 800 items, mainly Western, but including some from Africa and Asia. It is housed in purpose built premises dating from 1970 and is open to the public two afternoons a week. Stefano Blumberg, Jake Howarth and Tim Lambourne are also donors to this exceptional collection, having contributed hundreds of examples of their families' old sheet music.
[edit] Other collections
The College's loan and reference collections number several hundred thousand items. There are numerous manuscripts including some by composers such as Mozart and Haydn, and many letters, including a substantial Beethoven collection. There are tens of thousands of pieces of early printed music. The modern printed music is available for hire when not needed by the College. There are also thousands of recordings, and an extensive library, including sets of several hundred music journals.
The Department of Portraits and Performance History has a collections of 3,400 original portraits and 10,000 prints and photographs; a collection of 600,000 concert programmes from 1720 to the present day; and extensive holdings relating to opera, instrument, title-page and concert-hall design.
[edit] Famous students
Famous students of the RCM have included:
- Thomas Allen (born 1944), singer
- Malcolm Arnold (1921 - 2006), composer
- Robin Blaze - countertenor
- Arthur Bliss (1891 - 1975), composer
- Rutland Boughton (1878 - 1960), composer
- Julian Bream (born 1933), guitarist and lutenist
- Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), composer
- George Butterworth (1885 - 1916), composer
- Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912) black composer
- Thurston Dart (1921 - 1971), performer and musicologist
- Andrew Davis (born 1944), conductor
- Colin Davis (born 1927), conductor
- James Galway (born 1939), flautist
- Noel Gay (1898 - 1954), songwriter
- Daniel Giorgetti, composer
- Eugène Goossens (1893 - 1962), conductor
- Charles Groves (1915 - 1992), conductor
- David Helfgott (born 1947), pianist
- Peter Hill, pianist
- Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934), composer
- James Horner (born 1953), composer
- John Ireland (1879 - 1962), composer and pianist
- Constant Lambert (1905 - 1951), composer and critic
- John Lill (born 1944), pianist
- Neville Marriner (born 1924), conductor
- Steve Nieve (born 1958), keyboardist
- Peter Pears (1910 - 1986), singer
- Mica Penniman (aka Mika) (born 1983), pop rock musician and songwriter
- Trevor Pinnock (born 1946), harpsichordist and conductor
- Stephen Savage, pianist
- Cyril Smith (1909 - 1974), pianist
- Leopold Stokowski (1882 - 1977), conductor
- Joan Sutherland (born 1926), singer
- Michael Tippett (1905 - 1998), composer
- Mark-Anthony Turnage (born 1960), composer
- Rick Wakeman (born 1949), keyboardist
- Fanny Waterman (born 1920), founder, chairman and artistic director of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition
- Andrew Lloyd Webber (born 1948), composer
- Julian Lloyd Webber (born 1951), cellist
- William Lloyd Webber (1914 - 1982), composer
- Gillian Weir (born 1941), internationally-renowned organist
- John Williams (born 1941), guitarist
- Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), composer
[edit] External links
