Matthew Blunt

Review of Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music is a wonderful building...

The Royal Academy of Music is a wonderful building, with incredibly good facilities for teaching musicians. I studied here, and the teaching is unparalleled, it provided me with a wealth of skills that I use every day in my career, not only musically but socially and professionally as well. The building itself is incredibly historical, with many interesting antiques for the public to browse in the museum, a fantastic large scale performance platform in the spacious Duke's Hall, with a phenomenal newly built organ donated by Elton John. The small chamber music spaces are also acoustically brilliant, specifically in the David Josefowitz Recital Hall, where in summer you can come and watch the final recitals of the musicians who study here. There is a vast range of concerts that they provide (most for free!), as the numerous students have new and exciting programmes that they perform on a daily basis. The lunchtime recitals are a particular favourite, as the variety of works portrayed shows the increased diversity of musical interests that only students can have. I couldn't recommend the establishment any higher than saying that the people I worked with, the staff that taught me, and the building itself are all completely incomparable to other institutions.