Support Us
Join us in nurturing the next generation of musicians and ensuring the power of music continues to inspire, connect, and transform lives.
Current Campaigns
Individual Giving
Join a community of supporters who are investing in the future of music through opportunities that create lasting impact for students, audiences, and artistic innovation at the RNCM.
Legacy Giving
Each year we are kindly remembered by music lovers who leave a gift for the RNCM in their will. These ensure that a lasting, often transformative, legacy is left.
Corporate Giving
Partner with one of the world’s most progressive conservatoires. The RNCM brings together over 1,000 talented music students and more than 55,000 audience members annually, creating a unique platform for brand engagement and visibility.
Trust and Foundation Giving
Grants from Trusts and Foundations are central to the RNCM’s success as a world-leading conservatoire and live music venue. They enable us to welcome musicians from all backgrounds, help us to continually improve our facilities for student and public benefit, and widen access to music for Under 18s.
How your support makes a difference
At the RNCM, every gift helps nurture the next generation of musical talent, supports our world-class approach to music education, enhances our facilities, drives industry impact, and builds community engagement. Explore how your support can make a lasting impact:
Student Financial Support
We currently support one in three students with financial support, distributing over £3 million annually in bursaries and scholarships. We want to increase this to enable us to support one in two students.
RNCM Renew
World‑class musicians deserve world‑class facilities. RNCM Renew is our ambitious 10‑year plan to fully transform our estate, creating spaces that inspire, innovate, and empower the next generation of musical talent. With your support, we can make this vision a reality.
RNCM Futures
Our training prepares musicians to be versatile, industry-ready and equipped to shape the future of music. Funds raised support professional placements, side-by-side performance opportunities, innovation labs, masterclasses and entrepreneurial projects, ensuring RNCM musicians benefit from both world-class training and real-world experience. This empowers them not only to enter the industry, but to lead, challenge and change it.
RNCM Engage
The RNCM provides thousands of free, high-quality music training opportunities for under 18s every year because we believe every child deserves access to exceptional music teaching. Through RNCM Engage, we invest in both young people and the music education workforce, equipping educators, modelling best practice through our signature pedagogy, and delivering 10 flagship engagement programmes. More than 6,000 young people from Manchester and beyond benefit directly each year, helping to inspire, develop, and sustain the next generation of musicians.
Raised £2.83 million
with a further £1.1 million committed to future support
Offered 272 scholarships and bursaries
including 85 named awards
Facilitated over 6,000 young people
in music-making opportunities
Sarah’s Story
‘Music is a hard profession, and even the finest musicians may find it difficult to establish themselves and make a living.’
Sarah Davnall has been visiting the Royal Northern College of Music for more than 50 years. She and her husband, John, had moved to Manchester as the walls of the RNCM were still being built, and they first walked through the doors in May 1973.
It was to be the start of a long and thrilling relationship, and though John sadly passed in November 2023, he and Sarah will continue their connection with the RNCM through a legacy gift in both their wills.
Upcoming Events
Principal’s Circle 10th Anniversary Supper
Fri 16 Oct 2026
Benefactors’ Reception
Fri 6 Nov 2026
RNCM Legacy Club
Thu 11 Mar 2027
