Academy Clubs: welcoming local young musicians

Academy Clubs are back, with more opportunities for state-educated secondary school pupils to study with Academy teachers and students over a series of weekends. We will be hosting sessions teaching jazz, composition, percussion, theory and musicianship, with more instrumental disciplines planned for 2022.

These free workshops have been designed to increase access to the Academy's high-quality teaching, providing an opportunity for students to find out more about conservatoire study at junior and degree level. Since the clubs began last year, students have progressed to our Junior Jazz, Junior Academy and undergraduate composition programmes.

In August 2021 the Academy ran the first Springboard to Grade 5 Theory and Beyond summer school, taught by workshop leader Aga Serugo-Lugo alongside Academy teaching staff. Participants learnt key skills for their ABRSM exam, and worked together to produce and perform their own group composition, with many composing for the first time. The beginning of our summer school programme paves the way for longer and larger courses in 2022.

In the Autumn term we will be running our Jazz and Composers’ Clubs for a second year, and will be welcoming a new cohort of budding percussion players, some of whom will be trying out these instruments for the first time. Students are recommended to us by local music hubs and schools, with young people joining us from the boroughs of Waltham Forest, Haringey, Brent and Newham.

The clubs are generously funded by supporters, with this philanthropy further advancing the Academy’s aims of supporting the development of young musicians and increasing access at conservatoire level.