[4] The academy provides undergraduate and postgraduate training across instrumental performance, composition, jazz, musical theatre and opera, and recruits musicians from around the world, with a student community representing more than 50 nationalities.

[8] Famous academy alumni include Henry Wood, Simon Rattle, Brian Ferneyhough, Elton John and Annie Lennox.

The academy was founded by John Fane, 11th Earl of Westmorland, in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas Bochsa.

"[12] In 1911 the institution moved to the current premises, designed by Sir Ernest George[13] (which include the 450-seat Duke's Hall),[11] built at a cost of £51,000 on the site of an orphanage.

[15] The academy again expanded its facilities in the late 1990s, with the addition of 1–5 York Gate, designed by John Nash in 1822,[16] to house the new museum, a musical theatre studio and several teaching and practice rooms.

In 1991, the academy introduced a fully accredited degree in performance studies, and in September 1999, it became a full constituent college of the University of London, in both cases becoming the first UK conservatoire to do so.

[20] Among the Library's most valuable possessions are the autograph manuscripts of Purcell's The Fairy-Queen, Sullivan's The Mikado and The Martyr of Antioch,[21] Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Serenade to Music, and the newly discovered Handel Gloria.

Noted for her performances of Bach and modern English music, she was a friend and advocate of Arnold Bax and also premièred Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto—a work dedicated to her—in 1933.

Conductors who have recently worked with the orchestras include Semyon Bychkov, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Christian Thielemann.

Previous composer festivals at the academy have been devoted to the work of Witold Lutosławski, Michael Tippett, Krzysztof Penderecki, Olivier Messiaen, Hans Werner Henze, Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Stavros Papanikolaou, as well as academy graduates, Alfred Schnittke, György Ligeti, Franco Donatoni, Galina Ustvolskaya, Arvo Pärt, György Kurtág and Mauricio Kagel.

The festival included a recital by academy professor Maxim Vengerov, who performed on Il Cannone Guarnerius, Paganini's favourite violin.

[32] The students and ensembles of the Royal Academy of Music perform in other venues around London including Kings Place,[33] St Marylebone Parish Church and the South Bank Centre.

[34] Former students include Olga Athaide Craen, John Barbirolli, Judith Bingham, Dennis Brain, Alan Bush, Doreen Carwithen, Rebecca Clarke, Jacob Collier,[35] Clifford Curzon, Louis Dowdeswell, Edward Gardner, Lesley Garrett, David Patrick Gedge Evelyn Glennie, Eleanor Greenwood, Amy Horrocks, Dorothy Howell, Katherine Jenkins, Elton John, Annie Lennox, Kate Loder, Felicity Lott, Moura Lympany, Margot MacGibbon, Vanessa-Mae,[36] Denis Matthews, Michael Nyman, Elsie Southgate, Eva Ruth Spalding, Florence Margaret Spencer Palmer, Ashan Pillai, Simon Rattle, Cecile Stevens, Arthur Sullivan, Eva Turner, Maxim Vengerov, Kate Lucy Ward, E. Florence Whitlock, Margaret Jones Wiles, Carol Anne Williams and Henry Wood.