Latest News

An exchange with Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York immerses three students in stateside Jazz.

Five Jazz students and graduates were selected to arrange the songs of Midlands grime, hip-hop and rap artists to be played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Sixth form students from Birmingham Ormiston Academy (BOA) paid a visit to Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) recently for their first taste of opera.

Get to know who is driving BCU's Associate Faculty, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, in this regular feature. Head of Learning and Participation Associate Professor Richard Shrewsbury is an RBC alumnus who trains and supports music and creative arts students to take their practice and use it for social impact.

Get to know who is driving RBC in this regular feature, Meet the RBC leadership team. Head of Jazz Jeremy Price shares how he managed to get the Eastside Jazz Club into the architectural plans for the new Conservatoire building – which opened in 2017 – by taking the designers to Ronnie Scott’s to see the Mingus Big Band.

Get to know the people who are driving RBC in this feature. This week, we introduce Head of Woodwind Associate Professor Jenni Phillips, who began life at RBC in 1993, as an oboe teacher with the Junior Conservatoire.

Alumna Carly Palmer and Emeritus Professor of Music Education Martin Fautley scooped top awards at the Music and Drama Education Awards recently.

Principal Stephen Maddock shares updates on RBC events, alumni gaining recognition for their talents and significant funding wins.

The String Gym enabled young musicians to discover the physicality of playing a string instrument, while providing our students with the opportunity to mentor and build contacts. 

Postgraduate students Oliver Barker, Eli Street and Charly Browne have been accepted to the National Opera Studio Academy for showing ‘considerable vocal promise’.

Principal Stephen Maddock shares forthcoming events and his visit to Goa, India, last month, as part of the extraordinary Serendipity Arts Festival. 

BMus Music Performance alumni Zahrah Hutton and Matthew Robinson have recorded an album as the Mela Guitar Quartet , scheduled for release on Friday 24 January.

Visiting Tutor Matthew Sharp performed in two separate productions of Sweeney Todd in Germany and Sweden with less than 48 hours’ notice.

Alumna Emaleigh Conn was invited to Buckingham Palace, where she met King Charles III to celebrate her work to improve representation on stage and screen, and her dedication to empowering the underrepresented.

Alumna Penelope Appleyard has commissioned a musical setting of Jane Austen’s poem, Ode to Pity, to celebrate her 250th anniversary.