Becoming a professional
Performance is at the heart of all our work at the Academy, and we present over 400 public events every year. If you decide to study with us we’ll particularly endeavour to give you a real sense of what professional musical life will be like for you after you have graduated.
For example, we believe it is essential for students to have the experience of working with professional conductors of the highest artistic stature. Sir Colin Davis, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Trevor Pinnock are all regular Academy visitors, and 2010-11 also featured performances with Sir Simon Rattle, Heinz Holliger and Leif Segerstam.
Our students perform at major London venues including the Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall and Kings Place, as well as at the Aldeburgh and Spitalfields festivals. We collaborate regularly with the Juilliard School, most recently through our joint commission of Kommilitonen!, a new opera by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, with the world premiere at the Academy in March 2011.
One unique feature of performance at the Academy is our range of collaborations in which students perform literally ‘side-by-side’ with players from major professional ensembles. For example, in 2010 Academy students performed with the London Sinfonietta in George Benjamin’s 50th birthday concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
The Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Cantatas monthly concert series has rapidly become a firm fixture in London’s concert life. It provides unique opportunities for students to work with some of the world’s leading professionals on this challenging and rewarding repertoire.
We’re extremely proud of our graduates’ successes: recently Adam Walker (2009 graduate) and Denis Bouriakov (2004) have become Principal Flutes of the London Symphony Orchestra and New York Metropolitan Opera respectively, and Dominic Seldis (1992) Principal Double Bass with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Last year, Iestyn Davies (2002) won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award, and Jack Liebeck (2003) won the Classical BRIT Award for Young British Performer.
Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor (current student) appeared as soloist in two BBC Proms in the Albert Hall in 2011 (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra), and has also recently been awarded a three-year recording contract with Decca. Soprano Meeta Raval (2009) represented the UK in the 2011 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and guitarist Miloš Karadaglic’s (2006) first album DGCD reached no.1 in the UK classical charts.
Your own professional career could begin here.
