The Royal Academy of Music, founded in 1822, is Britain’s oldest conservatoire and has been shaped by famous students, teachers and a long sequence of firsts, from its royal charter in 1830 to its 1911 move to the Marylebone Road building.
 
The Academy began in Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, and from the start it was intended as a serious training ground for professional musicians. Its early history includes Carl Maria von Weber conducting the first orchestral concert in 1826 and King George IV granting a Royal Charter in 1830, which helped establish its status. A mid-19th-century history of the institution was even published in 1854, showing that the Academy was already being treated as an important cultural institution in its own lifetime.
 
Alumni and associates include Arthur Sullivan, Myra Hess, Sir Henry Wood, Richard Strauss, Harrison Birtwistle, Simon Rattle, Felicity Lott, Evelyn Glennie and Elton John.
 
Interesting facts...
It was also the first conservatoire to found its own recording label, which is a surprisingly modern move for an institution rooted in the early 19th century.