Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

The main entrance to Guildhall at the Barbican Estate
Type	Drama school and Music school
Established	27 September 1880 (merged with the Barbican Centre building in 1977)
Principal	Professor Lynne Williams
Students	930 (2015/16)
Undergraduates	575 (2015/16)
Postgraduates	355 (2015/16)
Location	City of London, England, United Kingdom
Affiliations	City, University of London
Website	gsmd.ac.uk

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in music, opera, drama and technical theatre arts.

The modern Guildhall School is a major European conservatoire which is both a music school and a drama school, and one which is involved in technical theatre, professional development and music therapy.

The school currently numbers almost 900 students, approximately 700 of whom are undergraduate and postgraduate music students and 175 on the acting and technical theatre programmes. In any given year, about 40% of the students are from outside the UK, typically representing over 50 nationalities.

The chairman of Guildhall is David Andrew Graves (Alderman), elected a governor in 2009 he became deputy of the board and then chairman in 2012. Guildhall’s principal is Barry Ife. He has made the Guildhall School the UK's largest provider of music education to under 18s by incorporating the Centre for Young Musicians (CYM) and creating new music "hubs" in Norfolk and Somerset; he has achieved recognition for Guildhall's music outreach and opera programmes through two Queen’s Anniversary Prizes (2005 and 2007); and he has realised the school's long-held ambition to build additional facilities at Milton Court (opened September 2013), including performance venues, rehearsal and teaching spaces. Ife led the Guildhall School’s application for Taught Degree-Awarding Powers, which were granted by the Privy Council in April 2014.

The Guildhall School of Music first opened its doors on 27 September 1880, housed in a disused warehouse in the City of London. With 62 part-time students, it was the first municipal music college in Great Britain. The school quickly outgrew its first home, however, and in 1887 it moved to new premises in John Carpenter Street in a complex of educational buildings built by the Corporation of London to house it and the City's two state schools.