From November, staff and students are looking forward to having guests back in the building for the first time in over 18 months
In-person events from November include the Autumn Piano Festival, symphonic concerts, jazz, opera and musical theatre productions. Many performances in the second half of term are free to attend, with booking required via the website from 15 September.
Performances in September and October will be livestreamed for free on YouTube, building on the success of our online concerts which, in the last year, have reached a global audience of over 200,000 people. Find out more about our livestreamed highlights in September and October here.
Curated by Head of Piano, Joanna MacGregor, this year’s Autumn Piano Festival is titled The Art of Transcription (3 Nov, free) and features MacGregor's transcriptions of jazz pieces by Mary Lou Williams, Piazzolla and Nina Simone, ending with Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale transcribed by Academy pianists and featuring actors from Drama Centre London.
We are pleased to be joined again by Sir Mark Elder, the Academy’s Barbirolli Chair of Conducting, who directs an all-Sibelius programme (5 Nov, 1pm, £8).
Philippe Herreweghe returns to the Academy to conduct Bach’s St John Passion (7 Nov, 11.30am, £20). Iain Ledingham conducts a performance of parts 1, 2 and 6 from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (5 Dec, 12 noon, £20).
Tamara Stefanovich, newly appointed Visiting Professor of Chamber Music, has curated a Chamber Music Festival (9-10 Nov, free), focussing on Kurtág, Ligeti and Bartók, and featuring new music from the 200 PIECES series of works written to celebrate the upcoming Bicentenary in 2022.
The latter half of the autumn term features 29 compositions from the 200 PIECES series including world premieres of music by Brett Dean, Gwilym Simcock and Roxanna Panufnik.
The Academy’s contemporary music group, the Manson Ensemble, performs a programme featuring the world premiere of The Ancient Yew by Academy PhD student Louise Drewett, alongside music by Kaija Saariaho, Lisa Illean and Gavin Higgins (19 Nov, 6.30pm, free).
Our instrumentalists will be working side-by-side with the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall (13 Nov, 1pm, £5) and at the Duke’s Hall with Brass Ensemble in Residence Septura (26 Nov, 1pm, £8).
The Jazz Department hosts the award-winning saxophonist and composer Jason Yarde, who leads the Academy Big Band in a concert featuring his music, conducted by Head of Jazz, Nick Smart (12 Nov, 8pm, £12).
Royal Academy Opera welcomes audiences back to the Susie Sainsbury Theatre for a double bill production of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (23-26 Nov, 7pm, £35).
The Musical Theatre Company presents their end of term showcase celebrating music by Broadway composer Jerry Herman at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre (6 Dec, 2.30pm and 7.30pm, £15).
The Academy is particularly delighted to welcome back some of the world’s best musicians for a series of 10 masterclasses throughout November and December including Ning Feng, Simone Lamsma, Adrian Brendel and James Ehnes. These are open to the public, with tickets priced at £5.
