The original Academy of Ancient Music

The Academy of Ancient Music was the name of a group of elite amateur and professional musicians that flourished in London from 1726 until 1802.

[1] The group began life in 1726 as The Academy of Vocal Music, whose membership was restricted to Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal or of ‘the Cathedrals’, and no other persons ‘but such as profess Musick, and shall be approv’d by the Majority’.

Among the early participants, in addition to singers from the Chapel Royal and St Paul's Cathedral (and later Westminster Abbey), were a number of eminent names from the worlds of music, politics and fine art, such as: The composer and theorist Johann Christoph Pepusch emerged as the musical director.

[2] From the outset the academy met at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, London.

Later in the century the academy moved its performances to the newly built, commodious Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden.