Music Facilities

City of London School boasts a purpose-built Music Centre over two floors of the school, overlooking the river.  This gives a unique atmosphere in the teaching and performance areas which are flooded with natural light.  There are 10 teaching/practice rooms with dedicated areas for chamber musicians, percussionists and organists.  Upstairs there are three teaching classrooms including the Boyes Recital Room which is also used for rehearsals and concerts.  Newly-completed, for September 2008, is a brand new Music Technology Suite.

Approximately half of the boys learn a musical instrument with many taking advantage of the busy team of 23 visiting instrumental teachers.  Boys who learn instruments outside School often take tuition on their second study during the school day.  Further details about the instrumental scheme can be found via this link.  All boys are entitled to two terms of free instrumental lessons on an orchestral instrument of their choice when they join the school.  Many continue with individual tuition afterwards.  The  music department has a large stock of instruments that are available for boys to use in their lessons and at home.  All boys are encouraged to take part in the busy extracurricular music in the school.  There are many concert opportunities throughout the year for all boys.  These vary from major events to smaller year group recitals.

The Boyes Recital Room houses a Yamaha grand piano and a Feldberg harpsichord.  The Great Hall houses a Steinway grand piano and the impressive three-manual Organ built by Walker and Sons (click here for further information).  The Great Hall is also the venue for all major concerts.  It can seat five hundred guests with a further one hundred and fifty musicians on the stage.

The music technology suite, completed in 2008, is used continually for class teaching as well as being the ideal place for composers to produce excellent quality work.  The music technology room contains twenty eight Apple workstations running Sibelius 5 and ProLogic software and linked to the teachers’ workstations for monitoring and playback.  An excellent sound/projection system complements the facility.