The Course
The Academy offers an ideal environment to learn and experiment with this extremely broad art form. There is a strong emphasis on performance with opportunities to play within the college and outside. The course benefits from small numbers, enabling each year to form a group that will play together extensively. The interaction between players can therefore develop to a level where lifelong musical associations are formed. Some of the finest jazz performers have been great composers, from John Coltrane to Kenny Wheeler. We aim to continue this tradition with a full and varied course in composition and arranging — covering many aspects and forms of jazz music and possible applications within other genres. We also bring in performers from the world jazz scene, as often as possible, to play with students.

The course is committed to continual development in order to remain as vital as possible in this ever-changing art form. We aim that, by graduation, you will have found your own creative voice and begun to develop this.

The department runs a four-year BMus programme,and MA and MMus programmes of 1–2 years.

'The commitment to jazz teaching that has filtered through to the once classical-only UK conservatoires is not only producing highly skilled soloists, it is turning those institutions into hothouses for new, fully formed bands playing original material'  
The Guardian, October 2009, reviews Symbiosis Big Band, in which mainly Academy performers played the music of Academy graduate bassist Yuri Galkin

Recent Student Successes
> Winners of both the overall and MBF development awards at the Peter Whittingham Jazz Awards 2007
> Finalists at the Montreux International Guitar Competition, 2006
> Winners, EBU European Jazz Competition at North Sea Jazz Festival 2007
> Kit Downes: Rising Star Award, BBC Jazz Awards 2008
> Joshua Blackmore (with Tom Cawley’s ‘Curios’): Best Band Line-Up of the Year, BBC Jazz Awards 2008
> Yuri Galkin: winner of the Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition 2010

Graduates since 2002 include
Joshua Blackmore, drums | James Maddren, drums | John Blease, drums and percussion | Ben Bryant, drums and percussion | Calum Gourlay, bass | Jasper Hoiby, bass | Tom Mason, bass | Kit Downes, piano | John Escreet, piano | Gwilym Simcock, piano | Ivo Neame, piano and saxophone | James Allsop, saxophone | Zhenya Strigalev, saxophone | Richard Turner, trumpet | Freddie Gavita, trumpet

2009–2010 Highlights
> Workshops with FLY, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Taylor, Ari Hoenig, Will Vinson, David Binney, Dave Samuels, George Garzone, Lee Konitz and Joel Frahm
> Big Band performances of music by Henry Lowther, Pete Hurt and Pete Saberton, F-ire Collective, Charles Mingus, Bix Biederbecke, Mike Gibbs and Billy May
> Collaborative projects with brass, percussion and composition departments
> Humphrey Lyttelton celebration concert at Hammersmith Apollo Weekly jazz sessions