Friday, March 2, 2012, 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM1510 E. 7th Street,
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With over 25 years of experience in pop and jazz instrumental and choral music, Dr. Charles Beale brings his training and expertise from the UK and New York to North Carolina. Join us on Friday, March 2, 2012 at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church as Charlie works with you on a genre of music most of us never studied and, that, therefore, sometimes feels alien.
- Primary topics include:
- Rhythm
- Sound
- Improvisation
- Mike technique (we’ll have lots of mikes and a PA system for individual and group work)
- How you can continue your study
Bring yourself, your small ensemble, your vocal band, your director, your chorus, your choir, your classically trained and untrained singers and join us on March 2 from 7:00 – 9:30.
The workshop is FREE, but registration is required. You can REGISTER HERE.
Originally trained as an organist, Dr Charles Beale studied music at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, England, where he conducted the chapel choir, and he later studied jazz at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he won the Rose Morris Prize as a composer and jazz pianist. Career highlights before his move to New York have included several national radio broadcasts in the U.K. as a classical pianist, a jazz organ concerto with the U.K.'s National Youth Jazz Orchestra, West End theater work, and he has collected playing and arranging credits on albums and singles by pop and dance artists including Whitney Houston and Adeva. Beale also has a burgeoning career as an international jazz educator and academic, was professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1999-2007 and was nominated for the U.K.'s prestigious National Jazz Parliamentary Award in 2005 for services to jazz education. In the past ten years, he has written many academic articles and toured extensively, adjudicating, examining, and doing jazz workshops and seminars for teachers in the U.K., the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. His recent ground-breaking book, Popular Voiceworks, co-authored with fellow-GALA director Steve Milloy and published by Oxford, was recently voted best Pop Music Publication of 2008 by the Retail Music Association of the UK.
Dr. Beale joined the New York City Gay Men's Chorus as Artistic Director in September 2007 after five years directing the London Gay Men's Chorus, during which time it grew to over 200 members and performed to critical acclaim at venues as diverse as the Sydney Opera House, Washington's Kennedy Center, and most of London's major concert halls. Having directed choirs for over 20 years as part of a broader musical career, choral directing is now gradually replacing jazz as his main focus. An active member of the Association of British Choral Directors, he gives frequent clinics on improvising and swing with choirs.
Dr. Beale's time with NYCGMC has so far been characterized by a new energy, a confident open sound, a more relaxed and interactive style with audiences, an extensive web presence and innovative programming that has included everything from Beyonce's Single Ladies and Benjamin Britten, to Broadway show favorites and traditional South African songs. In May and June 2009 alone, the chorus did over 25 Outreach performances, sang in every borough in the city and took part in a number of Marriage Equality benefits, including Defying Inequality at the Gershwin Theatre, where NYCGMC performed with Shoshana Bean. This new focus on reconnecting with our roots in the many LGBT communities of New York City is coupled with a continuing commitment to fight homophobia in all its forms and an unstinting educational mission around HIV/AIDS awareness.
Dr. Beale is currently co-writing a second Voiceworks book due out in Summer 2011, and commutes to London as often as he can to be with Yuwrajh, his partner of 18 years.