Royal Irish Academy of Music
The Royal Irish Academy of Music is an associate college of Trinity College, Dublin, located in Dublin, Ireland. It is one of Europe's oldest and most distinguished music conservatoires and is located is a Georgian building of outstanding beauty in the heart of the capital city.The RIAM was founded in 1848 by a group of music enthusiasts and moved to its present address in Westland Row in 1871. The following year it was granted the right to use the title "Royal". Its Teaching Staff includes many international and national prizewinners, members of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and many individuals whose names have become synonymous with music education in Ireland.The RIAM is a unique institution in the Irish context and doesn't follow the typical European conservatoire model. Since its foundation, it has developed to become a place of relevance and inspiration for three distinct groups of musicians reaching to over 50,000 each year.The RIAM's Local Centre Examination System, founded in 1894, is Ireland's only indigenous examining body for music. The LCES caters for 42,000 students in 1,700 centres in every county across the island of Ireland. Over 7,000 private music teachers enter their students for these exams and the RIAM has developed a portfolio of teacher training programmes aimed at this market. November 2013 sees the launch of the RIAM Teaching Network, Ireland’s first virtual learning environment aimed at continuing education for the instrumental and vocal teacher. By utilising the skills of its core faculty to teach and advise the RIAM Teaching Network, the institution is committed to consolidating its position as ‘the champion and enabler of the private music teaching profession’The RIAM has about 1,000 part-time students who take their music seriously, are assessed annually and make up some of the pool of students who apply for RIAM's full-time courses. Recent initiatives such as junior chamber music and junior improvisation have sought to offer such students the opportunity to develop a more rounded musical education.