Celebrating the More Music campaign

A group of people in a well lit room, holding glasses of champagne, celebrating.

More Music: Reimagining the Royal College of Music Campaign (2017–2022) touched all aspects of the Royal College of Music, from creating dynamic new spaces and facilities, to a new home for the Royal College of Music Museum. All of this will provide an inspirational environment in which our students can create, research and perform music.

In 2022, we were delighted to announce the successful completion of the More Music: Reimagining the Royal College of Music Campaign, which raised over £40 million. This includes £25 million for our new facilities, over £11 million for our endowment fund to support scholarships, and over £5 million for projects to create a lasting legacy from which our current and future students, staff and members of our community will benefit.

The More Music Campaign was set within the context of a history of committed philanthropy since our founding in 1882. The Campaign began in 2012 and was launched publicly in 2015 by The former Prince of Wales, President of the Royal College of Music and Patron of the More Music Campaign.

The main goals of the Campaign were to raise funds for an ambitious and vital new building development, to augment our endowment fund to support scholarships, and to raise funds for innovative core projects and outreach activities, all to consolidate our status as a world-leading conservatoire for teaching, learning and research.

Thanks to funds raised by the Campaign, the building underwent dramatic change, with several new facilities and spaces being developed. Some of the main highlights of the works included a full renovation of the ground floor café, development of the brand-new Cotes-Burgan Atrium at the heart of the College and the Performance Hall and Performance Studio. These spaces were fully mobilised in April 2021 to be utilised and enjoyed by staff and students.

A marble entrance with columns at the entrance to an old historical building.

The newly renovated Entrance Hall

The damaged floor mosaic in 2019 before refurbishment

The RCM's Entrance Hall in 2019, before renovation

The new front door to the RCM

Make an Entrance Opening Event Edward Fox 6x4

Edward Fox, great-grandson of Samson Fox, original benefactor of the Blomfield Building, at the opening celebration

Make an Entrance Appeal

A key part of the campaign was the Make an Entrance Appeal which ran throughout the summer of 2019 to fund the revitalization of our historic Blomfield Building’s grand entrance.

The RCM Entrance Hall and Foyer Hall have been in constant use for more than 125 years. Thanks to the generosity of 178 supporters, who collectively donated more than £75,000, we have transformed these spectacular spaces, making them more open and accessible, so that everyone can participate in the rich musical life of the RCM.

We are delighted that one third of the Appeal's supporters were inspired to donate to the RCM for the very first time. Philanthropy came from all quarters, with donors aged 27 – 100 and many RCM alumni offering their support. In addition to one-off donations, a number of donors established regular gifts, which are especially valuable to us as we plan for the years ahead.

The transformation included preservation of our celebrated mosaic floor, new and improved Box Office and Reception desks and new handrails, ensuring better access for all who visit the College.

'A welcoming space that showcases the College’s proud history and remarkable talent is essential for inspiring the next generation of musicians.'

Madison Hallworth, Master of Performance student

‘Your generosity provides our students with the opportunities they need for success as world-class musicians. Thank you for your support.’

Geoffrey Richards HonRCM, Chairman of the More Music Campaign

Building development timelapse

Watch our new building taking shape over more than two years of demolition and construction

Building development summary

The new building works were invaluable for ensuring safe access to learning and participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The additional space, coupled with newly integrated technology, also allowed us to safely adapt our teaching and learning spaces, deliver high- quality online tuition and programme a diverse repertoire of digital performances, demonstrating the increased resilience of the estate and value of the investment.

We also launched our new venue hire offering, enabling others to make use of our unique and beautiful spaces. This forms a new and sustainable strand of income for the RCM, as the capacity to support livestreaming with quality audio and video is now in high demand. Technology’s essential role in the 21st century is undeniable and has been pushed to the fore even more in the last few years. As the world’s leading conservatoire, we must keep abreast of technological advances, so that our students – who represent some of the best musical talent in the world – can achieve their creative potential.

The exterior of a red brick building, with a gravel courtyard, before the building development.

Courtyard before works commenced

A group of donors, wearing suits under their hi-vis jackets and hard helmets, with trumpet students performing, with the beginning of the construction in the background, smiling at the camera.

Breaking ground ceremony

A group of donors, wearing suits under their hi-vis jackets and hard helmets, with pipes behind them, smiling at the camera.

Donors on a tour of the construction site

Interior shot of a museum with historical instruments on display in a well-lit room.

The new Royal College of Music Museum

RCM Wolfson Centre in Music & Material Culture

Students in a string quartet performing on stage in black attire.

Performance Hall

A group of opera students preparing for an opera performance, with a opera staff supporting.

New opera dressing room

New spaces of the RCM

The Performance Hall and Performance Studio continue to be used for live recordings, the RCM’s In Focus series, exams and rehearsals.

Launched in the autumn of 2021, we installed three interactive learning units (‘Hit’, ‘Press’ and ‘Pluck’) that will be permanent resources in the Weston Discovery Centre. We look forward to the launch of the Weston Discovery Centre in autumn 2021, when we plan to embark on our programme of hands-on activities and workshops for families and schools.

The Wolfson Centre in Music & Material Culture occupies the former space of SB07 and SB01a in the South Building and includes a new building extension under the RCM Exchange. It provides dedicated space for accessible storage, research, cataloguing and object-based learning activities based on the Museum’s collection. The space provides easy access to parts of the collections for small class teaching and for undertaking individual research by RCM professors, students, and researchers.

The Centre combines intensive storage with an area to deliver lessons to a maximum of 10 individuals. Presently, the space continues to serve as a temporary conservation studio while we finalise the basement gallery display and coordinate the retrieval of collections items stored off-site. A new conservation workshop, equipped with a mechanical plant for humidity control and leak detection, will maintain the safety of the collection. Volunteers, alongside members of the Museum team, will be working in this new facility to catalogue and digitise new acquisitions.

The legacy beyond

"It’s been incredibly exciting to see the new spaces at the RCM come together and to now be able to make use of them. A personal favourite of mine has been the new Performance Hall, which has a beautiful acoustic, and which some of us composers were lucky enough to hear our works performed in earlier this term… having access to the new development overall has brought new opportunities for creativity, collaboration and music-making and I can’t wait to see what my colleagues get up to with it in the months and years ahead."

"Andrew Chen, Master of Music in Composition (Noël Coward Composition Scholar)

Get in touch

If you would like further information about supporting the RCM or more information on how we put donations to the best use, our Head of Philanthropy will be delighted to talk to you.