The Conservatory was founded over two hundred years ago as a music institute, and established as a Music Conservatory by Law no. 111/1974, it acquired definitively, with Law no. 508/1999, the status of institution of university-level education. It is considered one of the most vital and proactive Italian conservatories, both for the prestige of the teaching staff and for the quality, quantity and continuity of its artistic production.
In the 2014-2015 academic year, the Conservatory has 104 full professors and an enrollment of over 600 Italian and foreign students.
All musical instruments and related theoretical subjects are taught in academic courses leading to obtaining of a Bachelor’s Degree (three-year program) and Master’s Degree (two-year graduate program), in addition to pre-academic courses preparatory to the next levels. There are also open courses outside of the degree programs, and the Children’s Choir open to younger students.
The Conservatory is housed in a renovated building, owned by the City of Perugia, that was built in 1500. It has five thousand square meters of floor space, with about seventy classrooms, all of which have a piano. The auditorium has a large concert organ, specially built to the Conservatory’s own design, with five mechanical manuals, two pedalboards, fifty-eight registers and over six thousand pipes.
In addition to teaching, the Conservatory also organizes musical events, with master classes and weekly free concerts open to the City of Perugia.
Since the 2013-2014 academic year the Conservatory has been directed by Maestro Piero Caraba.