Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Russian Musical Society was founded in 1859 by Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, a German-born aunt of Tsar Alexander II, and pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. Elena Pavlovna secured Imperial approval from the tsar and served as the society's primary provider, while Rubinstein led its musical activities.
The inaugural concert of the Russian Musical Society took place in November 1859, with Anton Rubinstein performing one of his own piano concertos. Within a few years, the society had introduced Russian audiences to all the symphonies, piano concertos and overtures of Ludwig van Beethoven.
The RMS music classes were held at the Mikhailovsky Palace, the home of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna. They were open to all students, drawing an unusually diverse enrollment that included bureaucrats, merchants, tradesmen, university students and young women who lacked the means to study privately.
The St. Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in September 1862 under Anton Rubinstein, and the Moscow Conservatory, founded in September 1866 by Nikolai Rubinstein and Prince Nikolai Petrovitch Troubetzkoy, were the formal successors of the Russian Musical Society.
The Russian Musical Society was disbanded in 1917, the same year as the Russian Revolution. The upheaval that ended the old political order also brought an end to the institution that had underpinned professional music education in Russia for nearly six decades.
A successor body, the All-Russian Musical Society, was established in 1987. On the 18th of February 2010, at its Fifth convention, the organization voted to rename itself back to the Russian Music Society. The modern RMS has chapters in all Russian regions and organizes concerts, festivals, master classes and international participation for Russian musicians.