Further your musicianship, historical awareness and individual creativity in our vibrant department

Many of the outstanding performers in the current generation of historical performance specialists are graduates of our Historical Performance Department.

'The Historical Performance Department is full of musicians I grew up listening to, and it is incredibly humbling to learn from them'
Undergraduate student

As a student here, you too will learn how to forge your career path in this exciting part of the professional music world.

Our department has a lively atmosphere and collaborative approach. Undergraduate and postgraduate students work alongside world-class professors and performers on a wide range of repertoire (including contemporary repertoire for recorder players) and participate in a variety of activities including continuo, dance and education workshops, to develop an in-depth understanding of historical performance practice.

The department has a high profile across the Academy. Performance opportunities include the acclaimed ‘Bach the European’ concert series, Baroque opera, orchestral projects, chamber music and consort playing. This invaluable performance experience will equip you to meet the demands of the professional world.

The Academy houses an extensive collection of fine historical instruments and specially commissioned modern copies, which are available for students to use.

Discovery events

Discovery Events are the perfect way to find out more about the Academy and whether it’s the right place for you.

Read more >

A bassist chats with a passer-by in a corridor
Alexandra Bellamy holding a baroque oboe
Alexandra Bellamy holding a baroque oboe

Alexandra Bellamy

Alexandra Bellamy holding a baroque oboe

Alexandra Bellamy

Graduated 1994
Baroque Oboe

Alexandra Bellamy

Graduated 1994

Baroque Oboe

After Studying for her BA in Music at Queen’s College, University of Oxford and a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, Alexandra Bellamy completed her training with a stint as Principal Oboe of the European Union Baroque Orchestra. She has since established herself as one of the leading lights in the world of historical performance, having played with many of the UK’s period instrument orchestras. She has featured on several award-winning CDs and is much in demand as a principal and solo oboist.

She was Principal Oboe of the King’s Consort from 1999 to 2008 and featured on many of the group’s recordings from that time, most notably as the soloist on a disc of Handel’s oboe sonatas. She also has a long standing relationship with the chamber group Florilegium and has appeared on several of their discs over the years; as well as the Gabrieli Consort, Arcangelo and Rachel Podger’s Brecon Baroque, with whom she can be heard as soloist in Bach’s Oboe and Violin Concerto on their Bach Concerti disc. As Principal Oboe of the Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt, she has been involved in many highly acclaimed recordings, including the Brandenburg Concerti, St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio. In 2018 she was appointed Second Oboe with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and has since joined them for many wonderful projects.

Other career highlights have included tours of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Richard Tognetti, and tours and recordings with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.

Photo by Elsbeth Pilz

Meet
our alunni

Terence Charlston standing looking into the camera
Terence Charlston standing looking into the camera

Terence Charlston

Terence Charlston standing looking into the camera

Terence Charlston

Graduated 1989
Harpsichord

Terence Charlston

Graduated 1989

Harpsichord

Terence Charlston is an internationally acknowledged specialist performer on early keyboard instruments, particularly harpsichord, clavichord and organ. He studied music at Keble College, University of Oxford, where he was organ scholar, and then harpsichord at the Royal Academy of Music. His broad career encompasses many complementary roles including solo and chamber musician, choral and orchestral director, teacher and academic researcher. His extensive discography reflects his passionate interest in keyboard music of all types and styles. He was a member of the quartet London Baroque between 1995 and 2007 and the ensemble Florilegium between 2011 and 2019. In recent years, he has developed a particularly close affinity with the clavichord and is currently recording 20th- and 21st-century music, including his own compositions.

Charlston has become an important advocate of European keyboard music of the 17th and 18th centuries and his numerous publications include editions and recordings of Carlo Ignazio Monza, Albertus Bryne, William Byrd’s My Ladye Nevells Booke, Matthew Locke’s complete organ and harpsichord music, and Froberger: Complete Fantasias and Canzona on clavichord. His Mersenne’s Clavichord and The Harmonious Thuringian albums are considered exemplary models of practice-led research, drawing together meticulous organological and musicological enquiry with intuitive performance insight. His current research interests focus on the analysis of keyboard music, particularly counterpoint, as an aural and performed experience.

A dedicated and much sought-after teacher, Charlston has played a significant role at several prestigious British conservatoires and universities. He is currently Chair of Historical Keyboard Instruments and Professor of Harpsichord at the Royal College of Music. Previously he taught at the Royal Academy of Music, where he founded the Department of Historical Performance in 1995, and was International Visiting Tutor in Harpsichord at the Royal Northern College of Music until 2019. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1996 and received the honorary award of Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 2020. Over the last decade, he has helped to guide the exciting young vocal ensemble Amici Voices and has guest directed many of their concerts and recording projects.

Photo by Ben McKee

Tabea Debus holding a recorder
Tabea Debus holding a recorder

Tabea Debus

Tabea Debus holding a recorder

Tabea Debus

Graduated 2017
Recorder

Tabea Debus

Graduated 2017

Recorder

With an equal focus on contemporary and baroque music, Tabea Debus’s burgeoning career has taken her across Europe, Asia, Colombia and the USA. Highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, at the London and York Early Music Festivals, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Baroque at the Edge, Edinburgh International Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and Brecon Baroque Festival. Debus has collaborated with The English Concert, La Serenissima, Dunedin Consort, LSO Soundhub, English Chamber Orchestra and WDR Rundfunkchor, among many others, and has appeared live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and The Early Music Show. In 2019, she released her fourth album, Favourites, a follow-up to the highly acclaimed XXIV Fantasie per il Flauto.

Debus studied at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Professor Michael Schneider and the Royal Academy of Music with Pamela Thorby. She graduated with the Principal’s Prize and continued her association with the Academy as 2016-17 Meaker Fellow. Awards include the 2019 WEMAG Soloists Prize at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and first prize at the 2019 SRP/Moeck International Solo Recorder Competition, 2014 Johann Heinrich Schmelzer Competition and 2011 Hülsta Woodwinds International Competition. A former St John's Smith Square, Handel House and City Music Foundation artist, she was selected by the Young Classical Artists Trust in 2018 and joined the Concert Artist Guild roster for representation in America the following year.

Debus teaches recorder at Wells Cathedral School, has led seminars at the Royal Academy of Music and collaborates with London Music Masters and other organisations for workshops with children around the globe.

Photo by Ben Ealovega

Charlotte Barbour Headshot
Charlotte Barbour Headshot

Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Charlotte Barbour Headshot

Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Graduated 2018
Recorder

Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Graduated 2018

Recorder

Katherin Spencer sits against a dark background holding a clarinet
Katherin Spencer sits against a dark background holding a clarinet

Katherine Spencer

Katherin Spencer sits against a dark background holding a clarinet

Katherine Spencer

Graduated 1999

Katherine Spencer

Graduated 1999

Pawel Siwczak headshot
Pawel Siwczak headshot

Pawel Siwczak

Pawel Siwczak headshot

Pawel Siwczak

Graduated 2008
Harpsichord

Pawel Siwczak

Graduated 2008

Harpsichord

Find out more about the career paths of some of our former students

Meet our alumni
Alexandra Bellamy holding a baroque oboe
Alexandra Bellamy holding a baroque oboe

Alexandra Bellamy

Alexandra Bellamy holding a baroque oboe

Alexandra Bellamy

Graduated 1994
Baroque Oboe

Alexandra Bellamy

Graduated 1994

Baroque Oboe

After Studying for her BA in Music at Queen’s College, University of Oxford and a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, Alexandra Bellamy completed her training with a stint as Principal Oboe of the European Union Baroque Orchestra. She has since established herself as one of the leading lights in the world of historical performance, having played with many of the UK’s period instrument orchestras. She has featured on several award-winning CDs and is much in demand as a principal and solo oboist.

She was Principal Oboe of the King’s Consort from 1999 to 2008 and featured on many of the group’s recordings from that time, most notably as the soloist on a disc of Handel’s oboe sonatas. She also has a long standing relationship with the chamber group Florilegium and has appeared on several of their discs over the years; as well as the Gabrieli Consort, Arcangelo and Rachel Podger’s Brecon Baroque, with whom she can be heard as soloist in Bach’s Oboe and Violin Concerto on their Bach Concerti disc. As Principal Oboe of the Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt, she has been involved in many highly acclaimed recordings, including the Brandenburg Concerti, St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio. In 2018 she was appointed Second Oboe with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and has since joined them for many wonderful projects.

Other career highlights have included tours of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Richard Tognetti, and tours and recordings with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.

Photo by Elsbeth Pilz

Terence Charlston standing looking into the camera
Terence Charlston standing looking into the camera

Terence Charlston

Terence Charlston standing looking into the camera

Terence Charlston

Graduated 1989
Harpsichord

Terence Charlston

Graduated 1989

Harpsichord

Terence Charlston is an internationally acknowledged specialist performer on early keyboard instruments, particularly harpsichord, clavichord and organ. He studied music at Keble College, University of Oxford, where he was organ scholar, and then harpsichord at the Royal Academy of Music. His broad career encompasses many complementary roles including solo and chamber musician, choral and orchestral director, teacher and academic researcher. His extensive discography reflects his passionate interest in keyboard music of all types and styles. He was a member of the quartet London Baroque between 1995 and 2007 and the ensemble Florilegium between 2011 and 2019. In recent years, he has developed a particularly close affinity with the clavichord and is currently recording 20th- and 21st-century music, including his own compositions.

Charlston has become an important advocate of European keyboard music of the 17th and 18th centuries and his numerous publications include editions and recordings of Carlo Ignazio Monza, Albertus Bryne, William Byrd’s My Ladye Nevells Booke, Matthew Locke’s complete organ and harpsichord music, and Froberger: Complete Fantasias and Canzona on clavichord. His Mersenne’s Clavichord and The Harmonious Thuringian albums are considered exemplary models of practice-led research, drawing together meticulous organological and musicological enquiry with intuitive performance insight. His current research interests focus on the analysis of keyboard music, particularly counterpoint, as an aural and performed experience.

A dedicated and much sought-after teacher, Charlston has played a significant role at several prestigious British conservatoires and universities. He is currently Chair of Historical Keyboard Instruments and Professor of Harpsichord at the Royal College of Music. Previously he taught at the Royal Academy of Music, where he founded the Department of Historical Performance in 1995, and was International Visiting Tutor in Harpsichord at the Royal Northern College of Music until 2019. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1996 and received the honorary award of Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 2020. Over the last decade, he has helped to guide the exciting young vocal ensemble Amici Voices and has guest directed many of their concerts and recording projects.

Photo by Ben McKee

Tabea Debus holding a recorder
Tabea Debus holding a recorder

Tabea Debus

Tabea Debus holding a recorder

Tabea Debus

Graduated 2017
Recorder

Tabea Debus

Graduated 2017

Recorder

With an equal focus on contemporary and baroque music, Tabea Debus’s burgeoning career has taken her across Europe, Asia, Colombia and the USA. Highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, at the London and York Early Music Festivals, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Baroque at the Edge, Edinburgh International Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and Brecon Baroque Festival. Debus has collaborated with The English Concert, La Serenissima, Dunedin Consort, LSO Soundhub, English Chamber Orchestra and WDR Rundfunkchor, among many others, and has appeared live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and The Early Music Show. In 2019, she released her fourth album, Favourites, a follow-up to the highly acclaimed XXIV Fantasie per il Flauto.

Debus studied at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Professor Michael Schneider and the Royal Academy of Music with Pamela Thorby. She graduated with the Principal’s Prize and continued her association with the Academy as 2016-17 Meaker Fellow. Awards include the 2019 WEMAG Soloists Prize at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and first prize at the 2019 SRP/Moeck International Solo Recorder Competition, 2014 Johann Heinrich Schmelzer Competition and 2011 Hülsta Woodwinds International Competition. A former St John's Smith Square, Handel House and City Music Foundation artist, she was selected by the Young Classical Artists Trust in 2018 and joined the Concert Artist Guild roster for representation in America the following year.

Debus teaches recorder at Wells Cathedral School, has led seminars at the Royal Academy of Music and collaborates with London Music Masters and other organisations for workshops with children around the globe.

Photo by Ben Ealovega

Charlotte Barbour Headshot
Charlotte Barbour Headshot

Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Charlotte Barbour Headshot

Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Graduated 2018
Recorder

Charlotte Barbour-Condini

Graduated 2018

Recorder

Katherin Spencer sits against a dark background holding a clarinet
Katherin Spencer sits against a dark background holding a clarinet

Katherine Spencer

Katherin Spencer sits against a dark background holding a clarinet

Katherine Spencer

Graduated 1999

Katherine Spencer

Graduated 1999

Pawel Siwczak headshot
Pawel Siwczak headshot

Pawel Siwczak

Pawel Siwczak headshot

Pawel Siwczak

Graduated 2008
Harpsichord

Pawel Siwczak

Graduated 2008

Harpsichord