The Conservatoire (formally The Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts) is an educational charity in

Blackheath Blackheath may refer to: Places England *Blackheath, London, England ** Blackheath railway station **Hundred of Blackheath, Kent, an ancient hundred in the north west of the county of Kent, England *Blackheath, Surrey, England ** Hundred of Blackh ...

, on the border of the London boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham. The Conservatoire of Music and the Arts took on its current structure in 1991 with the merger of the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Blackheath School of Art, which until that point had operated separately on the adjoining sites, but under the same board. The Conservatoire is so called as it was a generic term for a music school at the time of its establishment, but it is not one in the present sense of a higher education establishment dedicated to music, and does not award its own qualifications. It does, however, offer GCSEs and A-levels, along with graded music exams. The Conservatoire offers classes in art, music and drama for adults and children.

History

Blackheath Conservatoire of Music (1881–1991)

The Conservatoire of Music was founded by a local group led by William Webster (son of wealthy building contractor William Webster) in 1881, and operated out of temporary premises on nearby Bennett Park until the completion of its building in 1896. Unlike the School of Art, it has taught continuously since its founding.

Blackheath School of Art (1896–1991)

The School of Art was taken over by the Army during World War II, and remained in government hands as office accommodation. In 1985, it was reopened as an art school, but proved financially unsustainable and was absorbed into the Conservatoire of Music.

Post-merger: The Conservatoire (1991–present)

The combined organisation expanded beyond music and art to include drama and cultural courses. It also expanded beyond the site to engage in partnerships with other bodies, such as the University of Greenwich,

Christ the King Sixth Form College Christ the King Sixth Forms are sixth form colleges based over three sites in South London, England. The college was first founded in 1992 by the Catholic Church on a site in Lewisham owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark, Archdio ...

and

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust is a National Health Service trust named after the ancient Oxleas Woods between Bexley and Greenwich. Current status Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS Foundation Trust providing community health, mental health ...

Closure threat

In January 2013 the Conservatoire was threatened with closure because of funding difficulties.Mark Chandler (17 January 2013
"Blackheath Conservatoire needs £75,000 to avoid closure"
''News Shopper'' (Greenwich). Retrieved 2014-01-14.

Buildings

Geograph-1210770 Blackheath Conservatoire

Both the Conservatoire of Music building and School of Art building were completed in 1896.
/ref> The architects were James Edmeston and Edward Gabriel. Both buildings are now

Grade II-listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. Adjoining these buildings is

Blackheath Halls Blackheath Halls is a 600-seat concert hall on Lee Road in Blackheath, London, United Kingdom. It claims to be London's oldest surviving purpose-built cultural venue.http://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/blackheath-halls/about-blackheath-halls About Black ...

. It is believed to be the oldest purpose built multi-arts building in London and one of the few to have a fully operational Victorian life drawing studio.

Notable students and teachers

Douglas Percy Bliss Douglas Percy Bliss (28 January 1900 – 11 March 1984; Urdu: ڈگلس پرسی بلیس) was a Scottish painter and art conservationist. Bliss's family was of Northamptonshire, England. His grandfather moved to Moray, Scotland. Bliss himse ...

* York Bowen *

Cecil Ross Burnett Cecil Ross Burnett (27 April 1872 – 6 December 1933) was a British landscape artist and portraitist. He signed his work "C. Ross Burnett". Early life and education Burnett was born in Old Charlton, Kent; his father, William Charles Burnett, ...

George Bertram Carter George Bertram Carter (1 March 1896 – January 1986) was an English architect. Carter attended Blackheath School of Art between 1911 and 1915 and then the Royal College of Art under William Lethaby and Arthur Beresford Pite between 1915 and 19 ...

Stephen Coombs Stephen Coombs (born Birkenhead, July 11, 1960) is a British pianist who works with orchestras and conductors, as well as performing as a solo artist. (1) Earlier life Coombs first became prominent in music at the age of thirteen, when he won sec ...

Nora Cundell Nora Lucy Mowbray Cundell (20 May 1889 – 3 August 1948) was an English painter of figure subjects, flowers and landscapes in oil and watercolours. Biography Cundell was born in London and was the granddaughter of the artist Henry Cundell. Sh ...

Harry Farjeon Harry Farjeon (6 May 1878 – 29 December 1948) was a British composer and an influential teacher of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music for more than 45 years. Early life and studies Harry Farjeon was born in Hohokus Township, ...

* Eric Gill * James Laver *

Decima Moore Lilian Decima, Lady Moore-Guggisberg, CBE (11 December 1871 – 18 February 1964), better known by her stage name Decima Moore, was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Compa ...

Heddle Nash William Heddle Nash (14 June 189414 August 1961) was an English lyric tenor who appeared in opera and oratorio. He made numerous recordings that are still available on CD reissues. Nash's voice was of the light tenor class known as "tenore di g ...

George Newson George Newson (born 27 July 1932) is an English composer and pianist who made some important contributions to British electronic and avant garde music during the 1960s and 1970s and has subsequently composed large and small-scale works in many mus ...

* John Platt *

Violet Sanders Violet E. C. Sanders, later Violet Sanders Mallet, (13 March 1904 – 1983) was a British artist who painted in both oil and watercolours and was a wood engraver and clay modeller. She was also a heraldic artist and illustrator. Biography Sande ...

Norman Sillman Norman Henry Sillman, Royal College of Art, ARCA, FRBS (4 May 1921 – 18 July 2013) was a British sculptor and a coin designer, including the One pound (British coin), one pound coins for the Royal Mint.John Skeaping John Rattenbury Skeaping, RA (9 June 1901 – 5 March 1980) was an English sculptor and equine painter and sculptor. He designed animal figures for Wedgwood, and his life-size statue of Secretariat is exhibited at the National Museum of R ...

Sidney Torch Sidney Torch MBE (born Sidney Torchinsky; 5 June 1908 – 16 July 1990) was a British pianist, cinema organist, conductor, orchestral arranger and a composer of light music. Early life Torch was born of Russian Jewish origin to a Ukrain ...

Harold Truscott Harold Truscott (23 August 1914 – 7 October 1992) was a British composer, pianist, broadcaster and writer on music. Largely neglected as a composer in his lifetime, he made an important contribution to the British piano repertoire and was influ ...

Richard Stoker, ‘Truscott, Harold (1914–1992)’, in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (2004) *

Fatimah Tuggar Fatimah Tuggar (born 15 August 1967) is a interdisciplinary artist born in Nigeria and based in the United States. Tuggar uses collage and digital technology to create works that investigates dominant and linear narratives of gender, race, and tec ...

* Gary Oldman *

Jools Holland Julian Miles Holland, (born 24 January 1958) is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer and television presenter. He was an original member of the band Squeeze and has worked with many artists including Jayne County, Sting, Eric C ...

* Kate Bush * Daniel Day-Lewis * Eska MtungwaziBrown, Helen
"Eska: the finest female vocalist in the UK"
''The Telegraph'', 15 April 2015. *

Dorothy M. Wheeler Dorothy Muriel Wheeler (1891–1966) was an English illustrator. She studied at the Blackheath School of Art, where her principal media were watercolour and ink. She designed children's book illustrations, postcards and comic strips. A series ...

References

External links

The Conservatoire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conservatoire Educational institutions established in 1881 Educational charities based in the United Kingdom Grade II listed buildings in the Royal Borough of Greenwich 1881 establishments in the United Kingdom Blackheath, London