In Media Music Ensemble, orchestral students work with Academy composition students and an experienced recording engineer and skilled session conductors/composers to gain experience in media sessions such as working to a click track. This training has been further expanded by media sessions at one of London’s top recording studios.

Students have access to state-of-the-art music software and professional-quality studios designed to enhance the learning experience and stimulate musical creativity. The Academy studios are set up for small-scale recordings and can also to link to a number of rooms around the Academy for larger recording projects. Complete video production facilities allow filming through to final delivery on DVD using industrystandard equipment and software to produce professional-quality results.

The top-quality recordings on the Academy’s own ever-expanding label are regularly broadcast by BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and the BBC World Service, and can be heard online at the Naxos Music Library. Selected discs are sold by iTunes, eMusic and other online retailers, and are distributed to shops throughout the UK. All proceeds are used to fund future recordings.

Recent releases include:

• All-American Brass: Works for brass by Copland, Gershwin, Barber and Bernstein. Academy Symphonic Brass conducted by James Watson
• Richard Strauss: Complete works for brass. Academy Symphonic Brass conducted by James Watson. ‘This CD is awesome by any standards’ — Brass Herald
• Richard Strauss: Complete works for wind ensemble. Royal Academy of Music Symphonic Wind conducted by Keith Bragg. ‘It’s a magnificent performance’ — Gramophone
• Song Circle’s third recording: ‘Goethe’s Girls and Mörike’s Men’
• Premier Prix: celebrating the virtuoso with this disc inspired by Paris Conservatoire’s ultimate accolade
• Highlights discs taken from live Royal Academy Opera productions of Rameau’s Dardanus with Laurence Cummings and Semele with the late Sir Charles Mackerras