Research

Engaging with audiences

Knowledge exchange and public engagement are key to all the RCM’s research activities, so as to enhance everyone’s understanding of what it might mean to be a musician, for the future as well as the past.

To this end the RCM is involved in creating:

• Grove Forum events
• Collaborative projects
• Open Studio’ initiatives

Grove Forum events

Named after Sir George Grove, the founder of the RCM, whose musical inquisitiveness was unbounded, the Grove Forum events are designed to foster lively debates about music across the boundaries of arts and science, theory and practice. The events include research presentations, roundtable discussions and lecture recitals, and they are often linked to other institutions via the RCM’s videoconferencing facilities. They usually take place on a Thursday afternoon and tickets are free to the public.

Collaborative projects

As part of its aspiration to reach a wider public, the RCM has collaborative research partnerships with the Open University (researching the history of listening practice), the Victoria & Albert Museum (providing music for its galleries), the BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall and British Library.

‘Open Studio’ initiatives

The RCM’s vision of opening the musician’s ‘studio’ to new enquirers, as well as to new modes of enquiry, is greatly enhanced by its position within Albertopolis and the rich heritage of the Exhibition Road cultural quarter. The RCM is thus committed to linking a spirit of enquiry into all its artistic and educational activity and to ‘opening its doors’ – whether doors onto the past or into the future – to as wide a public as possible. Research at the RCM is thus committed to helping make music more ‘visible’ in the RCM’s immediate cultural surroundings and further afield – through events of all kinds, workshops, exhibitions, podcasts and publications.