BIO

SHORT BIO

Dr Charles (Charlie) Beale is an international choral conductor, jazz educator and activist in LGBTQ singing worldwide. Artistic Director of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus since 2022, he held the same position at the 275 strong New York City Gay Men’s Chorus from 2007-2019. Vice-Chair of the Board of GALA Choruses from 2018-2020, he regularly conducts at Carnegie Hall and the South Bank Center, London. Co-Artistic Director of Various Voices 2009, and conductor of an all-Australia LGBTQ chorus in 2013, in 2018 he founded the Global Alliance of Queer Choirs, from which he recently stepped down as Founding President. Conductor of the Royal College of Music Big Band and Lead Consultant for jazz at ABRSM, London for many years, he was nominated for a UK Jazz Parliamentary Award in 2005. His ground-breaking new OUP book ‘Transforming Choral Singing’ came out in October 2024.

LONG BIO

Charlie Beale is an international choral director, jazz educator, composer-arranger and author, with a unique approach to activist choral singing.

A passionate campaigner for stylistic diversity within choral singing, he has been the Artistic Director of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus since 2022, and held the same position at the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus from 2007-2019. Highlights in San Diego have included joint performances with Coro Gay Ciudad de Mexico, Coro Diversidad Tijuana and homeless choir ‘Voices of our City’. SDGMC’s Schools program is also breaking down barriers for kids across San Diego, and in 2025 will focus on middle schools.

Under his energized leadership, NYCGMC expanded to 300 singers, achieved strong commercial success, and remains recognized for its innovative, entertaining and impactful performances locally, across the US and internationally. NYCGMC’s Connect program included Youth Pride Chorus, queer pop a cappella ensemble Tonewall, a schools program and a singalong program for LGTBTIQ+ elders across all five boroughs of New York City.

Highlights included performances to stadium-sized audiences with Sia and Demi Lovato, singing on the Emmy Award-winning movie of Larry Kramer's iconic 'The Normal Heart' (2010), a 2013 European tour, and a 2015 performance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lincoln Center. In June 2019, the development of Quiet No More, a 45 minute choral work celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, performed by 25 choirs across the US and internationally. The project culminated in a massed choral performance under his direction by over 600 singers at Carnegie Hall.

He has a library of over 200 arrangements in all styles, mainly for TTBB chorus, and he is an award-winning arranger in jazz and choral music, published by Oxford, Hal Leonard, Faber and ABRSM Publishing. A leading innovator in the field, he also penned the chapter in LGBTIQ+ choral singing in the recent Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy. Now Vice President of the Board of Directors of GALA Choruses and President of the Global Alliance of Queer Choirs, Charlie is a leading voice in the queer choral movement. In turbulent and uncertain times, he is especially passionate about music as a way to unify, heal and bring people together.

Previously based in London, Charlie remains one of the UK's most influential jazz educators. Having received his Ph.D from the Institute of Education, London University, he taught at the Royal College of Music in London from 1999-2007, where he was Area Leader for Aural Training, Professor of Jazz Piano and directed the Royal College of Music Big Band. An alumnus of the Guildhall’s famed jazz course, he was nominated for a UK Jazz Parliamentary Award for services to jazz education in 2005, and was on the Resource Team of the International Association for Jazz Education in the early 2000s. Author of critically acclaimed book 'Jazz Piano from Scratch' (Hal Leonard/ABRSM), he also penned the chapter on Jazz Education in the recent Oxford Companion to Jazz. Central to the invention of the UK’s Grade exams for beginner jazz musicians, he has worked with thousands of musicians and educators in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

Since 2020, Charlie’s main focus has been the international choral scene, and in 2018 he founded the Global Alliance of Queer Choirs, from which he recently stepped down as Founding President. In Spring 2020, he returned from a 4 month sabbatical tour of South East Asia and Australia, which included workshops, presentations, performances and meetings across the region, and events in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Manila, Ubud (Bali), Sydney and the Out and Loud Festival, in Canberra Australia.

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