Charlie Penn plays piano in Music of Life Choirs at Special Schools sessions, working alongside the teams of vocal leaders to deliver engaging and fun workshops across many special schools in the Midlands.
Charlie graduated from the University of Birmingham where he studied piano with Joseph Middleton. He maintains a busy freelance timetable as a versatile musician specialising in work with choirs of all ages and abilities. He has appeared on TV and radio multiple times, performed in some of the top concert halls around the UK, including the Royal Albert Hall and Birmingham Symphony Hall, and recently played for two concerts with the BBC Singers. Charlie is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, previously joining the music staff for Grimes on the Beach in Aldeburgh and performing on organ conducted by Semyon Bychkov. On the theatre stage he has appeared in Orpheus, an original piece devised and performed by Little Bulb Theatre, and as Keyboard 1 in an exciting new orchestration of Threepenny Opera for the renowned Salzburg festival. He has even made a brief appearance on the BBC’s The One Show, teaching Lee Mack some basic piano vamping!
Alongside his work with Music of Life, Charlie is Music Director of the Harborough Singers and the Reading A440 choir, Assistant Director of Cantate Youth Choir, and is an assistant conductor and accompanist with the National Youth Choirs. He works as a choral specialist for the David Ross Education Trust training choral leaders in schools around the country, and can regularly be found playing various keyboard instruments with the orchestra of Sinfonia Viva. He also teaches piano and directs the boys’ choirs at the Stephen Perse Foundation. Previously, Charlie was Director of Stone Choral Society, has accompanied a wide range of chamber choirs and choral societies, and was a visiting tutor at the Birmingham School of Acting.
Charlie’s abilities and willingness to tackle any style of music have led him to work with many prestigious musical organisations including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Armonico Consort and the national singing programme, Sing Up! He also assists in the running of the Choral Conducting course at the international Sherborne Summer School of Music, accompanies various workshops and courses for Sing for Pleasure and the Association of British Choral Directors, and has regularly directed very popular singing courses for the Cambridge Holiday Orchestra Association.
