Charley is currently studying for a Masters in Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) with professor Mark Knight. Over the past two years she has performed at the Barbican and the new Milton Court concert hall, under conductors including Edward Gardner, Gianandrea Noseda and Gustavo Dudamel. As well as orchestral work, Charley has taken part in masterclasses with Lawrence Power, Garfield Jackson, Simon Rowland Jones and members of the London Symphony Orchestra, and has had chamber music coaching from members of the Chilingirian, Endellion and Heath quartets.
Prior to this, Charley graduated in Pharmacology at the University of Manchester, where she was a member of the Manchester University Music Society which toured Bulgaria, Germany and the Czech Republic. From the age of 14, Charley attended the Royal College of Music Junior Department, where she was appointed Principal Viola of the symphony and chamber orchestras, and was awarded the Senior Prize for string playing. She was also selected to play in a string quartet to represent the RCMJD at an event attended by Her Majesty the Queen.
Charley was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for five years, being appointed Principal Viola in her final year. With this orchestra, she performed at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms), Birmingham Symphony Hall, The Maltings at Snape and the Sage, Gateshead, playing under a number of the world’s leading conductors, including Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Mark Elder, Semyon Bychkov and Sir Antonio Pappano.
She is looking forward to joining the Southbank Sinfonia in 2014 while completing her studies at GSMD.
If you could play another instrument, what would it be and why?
French horn or cello. I love the sound of them both, and am also quite jealous of how composers wrote for them.
What or who inspired you to become a professional musician?
It was the many experiences I’d had with incredible orchestras and musicians, and spending three years studying another subject as an undergraduate degree, that made me realise how much I missed music and that not other career path would be satifying enough.