I had my BA Acting audition here and I believe I saw Tim and Olivia Ross. The audition was cold, discriminatory and awful. We begun with a warm-up where we had to walk around the space and roll through our body. The lady then made us enter into the space one-by-one and we had to mention where we are from and a thing we noticed today. She sent out a lot of negative energy and us auditionees could sense that. At one point, she looked at me weirdly and I knew from that point on, she was not going to recall me regardless of how well I did. They also engaged in ageism and I just wanted to go home as I knew where this was going to go. The panel pick and choose who they want to see via how many monologues they want you to do. You must have three monologues and a song ready. If they make you do all three monologues, it is a higher chance that they will want to see you again for the recall. In my opinion, it was an unprofessional audition and Guildhall falsely claim that they are diverse just because there are oriental actors/actresses who are on a different programme. Lastly, there are out-of-work graduates here who will tell you that they have not worked for a while.

I was there 1990-1993 on Saxophone, I was thoroughly miserable there, it destroyed my passion for the Saxophone (which I no longer play) Fundamentally , I believe Music should be about enjoyment, this institution didn't seem to have this ethos. I had won scholarships to 3 of the other London conservatoires at the time, I hugely regret not going to one of them. My principal study teacher delivered just 6 lessons in my final year due to other commitments. The Head of Academic studies at the time, threatened to review my degree classification as I wasn't available to play in the show (after my course had just finished) I have had several fellow Guildhall students on Social media over the years, It amazes me how many are no longer involved with Music. I have been a Head of Music for many years (retiring very soon) Numerous students i have had the pleasure of teaching have been successful when auditioning for Music college, none felt the Guildhall was right for them. I could write so much more, but will contact the place when i have more time, sharing my experiences in the hope that others aren't as let down.

Amazing music and drama school, right in the City of London.

I studied classical piano at this conservatoire from 2019 to 2023. I ended up dropping out in the fourth year due to the ridiculous demands of the course and the callous disregard from teachers for their students. In the fourth year we were required to teach students every week and write a kind of log culiminating in a minimum number of words (3000 I think). The student I was allotted never showed up and never responded to my emails. One of these students was a Guildhall student, the other a barbican resident. The barbican resident responded to my emails but did not show up to the first lesson. She did not have a mobile phone nor an instrument, all she had was a landline and an iPad through which she used her email. I had to teach on the public use keyboard in the Barbican library. I felt insulted considering I had to commute there to her location and teach for free. She did not come to me despite her being a retiree and me being a busy overworked student . Moreover she did not even have an instrument. Keep in mind I did not come here to study teaching, I came here to study classical piano PERFORMANCE. The second mandatory task to pass the year was to put on a public concert all by ourselves and give a recital. We were expected to hire a venue, advertise this concert and record it. I am a student with little money renting in London who is expected to hire a venue, a tuner and put on a concert all by himself. No financial assistance was given at all for this. I had never done any of this before and I had no idea I would have to do this. I did not think classical musicans had to also do the jobs of recording technicians, concert managers and advertisers. Surely the classical musican's sole concern is his craft, his instrument? Why are we required to do this? Finally, I was required to perform a chamber work. No musicans were allotted to me, I had to find them myself. I couldn't find them, asked department heads for some, some finally agreed but never practiced their parts and skipped alot of rehearsals. None were being marked for it so they didn't care. I suffered a great deal of embarassment during coaching sessions, and I realised we wouldn't be able to perform the work for my assessment. Teacher kept insisting I instead play this horrendously difficult Stravinksy concerto for two pianos, which I would have had to learn and perform in 3 months. She said I would have to pay money to another student to have her play and rehearse it with me £250-300). I asked to play an easier classical duet but she dismissed my wishes rather arrogantly. She only wanted me to play 20th century works. All of this could have been avoided if we had been assigned WILLING partners from the get go who were in the same boat. In the end the pressure was too much. It didn't help that I never managed to make any friends during my four years here. There are a lot of arrogant privately educated kids here, a great deal from Chethams, Purcell and other private schools. I have often said hello to my fellow students in the hallway only to be ignored. If you do not belong to their milieu they will treat you like a leper. There is zero diversity here when it comes to economic background, and as for ethnic background most students are white european, with east asian a minority. Funnily enough despite there being a broad range of different nationalities here each nationality sticks with their own and rarely mixes or interacts with the others. Don't go to this conservatoire, you will spend 50% of your time doing useless academic exercises instead of actually studying instrumental performance one on one with a teacher. You only get 1-2 hours a week of principal study one on one teaching anyway, and that's only during term time. Get yourself a good private teacher instead. Coming here completely killed my love for music or piano and I had a very miserable time. Perhaps I'm not popular or good looking enough for that place, either way they will make it known you are not wanted there. I hope others won't make the same mistake I made studying here.

A positively wonderful school which turns out the likes of A+ talent such as actor Orlando Bloom. I would love to attend the school but alas I am 46 (too old I'm sure) and live in the USA.

Amazing concert hall, great acoustic! Love it

Very enjoyable experience during tge jazz and rock concert Music School of summer 2022!

I was here to see the opera Dead Man Walking in their Silk Street Theatre in March 2023. It holds 308 people and I had excellent sight and sound of the action from my central seat (E14). There's a cloakroom as you walk into the building and a bar outside the theatre doors for pre show and interval refreshment. You can get to the theatre from inside the Barbican complex.

Went to see an evening with Brian Blessed here so can only comment on it as a small venue/theatre which seemed excellent. Drinks were laid on so have no feedback on the bar... but we couldn't take drink in to the 'show'?! It is close to quite a few tube stops, Barbican being the closest.

Beautiful building, nice bar. Great venue.

This has 2 performance halls in one complex. 1 being a large music hall catering for a fairly large audience and the 2nd is a mini theatre which has stalls circle grand circle etc. It really just mimics a full size theatre as far as design is concerned but just looks like it has been shrunk. Still a good theatre.

Small concert hall but has lovely programmes

Junior Guildhall is terrible. It’s run like a farm. Both parents and children are treated like cattle. Attitude is beyond obnoxious. I have attended world-class, heavily oversubscribed institutions all my life. Never have I ever been treated so badly. I do not understand why parents put up with this. Specifically: 1. They do not allow parents to leave the premises. You are required to spend the entire time inside a tiny hall indoors with insufficient seats. It is dark and stuffy. It is hot in the summer. Presumably it’s so parents are always around to take the kids to the toilet. I wonder how literally every other school in the world manages to get their kids to the toilet every day without requiring the parents to stick around the whole time. 2. They have insufficient toilet facilities. They make 3 toilets available to the 100+ parents and children trapped in their facilities at any given time. I have not looked it up but it wouldn’t surprise me if they are in breach of healthy and safety regulations. At the beginning of the term in 2021, they only made one toilet available. So from their perspective they are being generous to the parents by making 3 toilets available. 3. Price: It is ridiculously overpriced! We pay about the same for a class with 10:1 ratio as we pay for private lessons at our son’s music school (the most expensive day school in London as far as I know). Essentially they are milking their name. The product is far inferior than what you would expect for the price. ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!

My Mother graduated from here and had an overall good experience. She graduated with a degree in performance of violin in the Music department. She speaks of her time in London to this day!