Founded in 1882, the Royal College of Music (RCM) is a world-leading music conservatoire with a prestigious history and contemporary outlook. Our 800 undergraduate and postgraduate students come from over 60 countries and are taught in a dynamic environment, leaving the RCM to become the outstanding performers, conductors, and composers of the future.
For the second consecutive year in 2017, the RCM was ranked as the top conservatoire in the UK and Europe for the Performing Arts in the QS World University Rankings and second in the world. In 2016, the RCM was ranked by The Guardian as the leading Higher Education Institution in the UK for studying music and as the top UK conservatoire in the Complete University Guide’s Arts/Music Institution League Table 2017.
RCM professors are leaders in their fields and, under such expert guidance, RCM students regularly achieve remarkable success around the globe.
Among our alumni are composers and performers such as Sir Hubert Parry, Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst, Sir Colin Davis, David Helfgott, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Lord Lloyd Webber, Dame Joan Sutherland, Sir James Galway, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Alfie Boe.
Regular visitors to the RCM include Maxim Vengerov (Polonsky Visiting Professor of Violin), Bernard Haitink, Sir Thomas Allen, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Lang Lang. Our most recent honorary doctorates are Vladimir Jurowski, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Roger Norrington, Bryn Terfel and Steve Reich.
For more information visit www.rcm.ac.uk. To watch more masterclasses, concerts and talks from the Royal College of Music visit www.youtube.com/rcmlondon.
