We will be holding Virtual Open Days this September. Find out more and sign-up at ram.ac.uk/opendays

The Echéa Quartet performed a lunchtime concert of music by Haydn, Beethoven and alumnus Eleanor Alberga, hosted by the City Music Foundation and available to watch on their YouTube channel.

The quartet was formed in 2017 by four new Academy postgraduate strings students who, on graduation, were awarded the 2019/20 Academy Chamber Music Fellowship. They perform with us regularly as part of their role, working with composers and mentoring younger students, alongside a busy professional portfolio of external concerts.

New music project Eight Songs From Isolation is coming soon to Apple Music - you can watch the trailer here. These collaborative recordings bring together leading composers and performers. Featured Academy students, staff and alumni include Freya Waley-Cohen, Helen Grime, Huw Watkins, Iestyn Davies and Oliver Zeffman.

Alumnus Iain Farrington composed Beethoveniana for the first night of the 2020 BBC Proms, presented this year as digital broadcasts with some live performances from August. The music was recorded remotely and features 300 musicians from the five BBC Orchestras and the BBC Singers. 2020 marks 250 years since Beethoven’s birth, so stay in touch with us on social media to see how we plan to celebrate this anniversary.

Thanks to the Maknickas family for sharing their #RAMplaysON performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D minor. Ignas is a piano student at the Academy, and his sister Greta will be joining us from September.

Academy student and cello sensation Sheku Kanneh-Mason performed Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No 1 with the Philharmonia Orchestra in a socially distanced concert at the beautifully restored Battersea Arts Centre.

Also shared by the City Music Foundation this week was a concert of harp music by alumna Gwenllian Llŷr, streamed live from the St Pancras Clock Tower.