ABRSM History
The Growth of ABRSM
From the very beginning ABRSM had a duty imposed by the Charter of the Royal College to promote ‘the cultivation and dissemination of the art of Music in the United Kingdom and throughout the Dominions’. By 1892, the University of the Cape of Good Hope had invited ABRSM to conduct examinations in the Cape Colony. By 1895, Australia, New Zealand and Canada were all receiving visits from ABRSM’s examiners. Examinations were introduced to Malta in 1903 and the West Indies in 1907. By 1948, ABRSM had Honorary Local Representatives in South Africa, India, Pakistan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Malta, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Cyprus, Singapore and Kenya.
The examinations offered by ABRSM rapidly grew in popularity during the twentieth century. Annual entries numbered 30,000 by 1914 and its authority was extended to include the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in 1947. By this time, candidature had topped 100,000.
By 1981 ABRSM was examining in excess of 460,000 candidates a year in a wide variety of instruments.
New examinations for jazz
In 1999 the Board launched a Jazz Piano and Ensembles syllabus and supplemented the new programme in 2003 with the introduction of flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and trombone assessments. Over 600,000 candidates now sit ABRSM exams each year in over 90 countries worldwide, including locations as diverse as Aruba, Oman and Sierra Leone.