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Undergraduate Programme: BMus, One-Year Programmes

One-Year Programmes

Foundation Programme

If your musical skills are good enough for BMus entry but your English language skills are below IELTS 5.5, you can apply for the Academy’s one-year Foundation Programme—offering you an intensive English language course as well as providing music tuition. You take the standard BMus audition, and your English language skills must reach IELTS 4.5.

If you satisfactorily complete the Foundation Programme, you will normally progress to Year 1 of the BMus. Further information is available from www.ram.ac.uk or from the Registry.

Year-In Programmes

If you wish to benefit from undergraduate training at the Academy but do not require a full programme of study which leads to a qualification, the Academy offers a range of Year-In opportunities.

All Year-In students are considered as fully-enrolled members of the Academy’s student body, and have equal access to the Academy’s resources (library, computers, practice rooms etc). Further information is available from www.ram.ac.uk or from the Registry.

(Picture: Photo of David Rattray Instrument Custodian, with Children from Tower hamlets)

The common principles are to:

Enable you to benefit from one year of conservatoire education.
Provide you with a tailor made course of study according to your individual strengths and needs.
Offer you the same performance opportunities provided for degree students (with the approval of your Academic Tutor and Head of Study).
Offer you appropriate academic subjects in consultation with your Tutor.
Assess your practical and/or academic progress by examination provide a transcript of your studies, but no award (degree or diploma).

The categories are:

Gap Year—if you wish to spend a year at the Academy before taking up a full-time programme of study at another institution, at which you have already secured a place. Audition requirements are the same as for BMus.

Year Abroad—if you are a non-UK student and wish to benefit from a conservatoire education at the Academy by interrupting studies at your ‘home’ institution, when there is no existing exchange agreement in place. It is possible to attend for part of one academic year (one or two terms, or a semester-equivalent period), and we encourage you to commence the study period in September. We prefer you to audition live (usually BMus requirements) but it may be possible to apply by submitting a recording; please contact the Registry for details.

Organ Foundation—if you are a gap-year student preparing for an Oxbridge organ scholarship, or if you wish to develop your organ/choral direction skills before your formal university or conservatoire training. Audition requirements are available at www.ram.ac.uk or from the Registry.

Exchange Programmes

The Academy has exchange agreements with many conservatoires across the world. These are normally for students on a Bachelor degree programme who have reached the Academy’s Year 3 entry level, but can also be for students studying on a Postgraduate Diploma programme or MMus programme.

Exchanges can be for one term, one semester or a full academic year. The Academy’s exchanges are normally a reciprocal arrangement. If there is no exchange agreement with your institution, or if a reciprocal student cannot be found, you may be offered a Year-In Year Abroad studentship.

Please ask your institution’s Exchange Coordinator for further information.

‘Electrifying versions should have successfully put bad ideas in to the heads of all the music scholars present: study hard, and you too could become a rock star’
London Evening Standard, Dec. 2002, on Elton John at the Royal Opera House with Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra and Choir.