Charlie Gower-Smith is a conductor of choirs and orchestras, in demand for working at all levels with warmth and fun whilst demanding precision and excellence. He is Musical Director of Jervaulx Singers and the Chapter House Youth Choir.

Jervaulx Singers as a leading vocal ensemble based in North Yorkshire and performing across the UK. Since founding the group in 2021, Charlie has driven the development of the group to establish it as one of the finest vocal ensembles in the country. He formed a unique approach to programming, creating narrative-driven programmes to tell stories by combining choral music with solo song and semi-staged opera extracts, to rave reviews from audiences.

 

Charlie is Musical Director of the Chapter House Youth Choir, a post which he has held since the group’s founding in 2016. Under his leadership, the group has grown and thrived, establishing itself as the go-to group in York for the city’s most able singers to be stretched and challenged. Since its founding, the group has sung with The King’s Singers, English Touring Opera, and the Gabrieli Consort in their ROAR concerts at York Minster. The group also sang live on BBC Radio 4.

 

Charlie has worked extensively with The Voices of the River’s Edge Choir at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music (formerly Sage Gateshead). He assisted Grace Rossiter for their performances in the BBC Proms in 2022 and 2023, and was a regular conductor with the choir during its formative stage, working to build the singers’ skills ready for further high-profile performances with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, such as live Home Alone shows.

 

Former posts include director of Leeds Chamber Choir, with whom he gave regular broadcasts of BBC Radio 4LW’s Daily Service, director of the Thirsk Sinfonia Orchestra, with whom he directed a broad range of symphonic repertoire, and assistant director of the Hallé Ancoats Community Choir. He has worked with numerous choral societies, including the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, Chorus of the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Trinity Singers Cambridge.

 

As a choral animateur, Charlie has worked extensively delivering singing in the workplace, engaging employees in the joy of making music to develop a workforce. He has led regular workplace choirs for John Lewis, Addleshaw Goddard, Macmillan Cancer Support, Leeds City Council, and TransPennine Express, a Hallé Corporate Choir.

 

Charlie is a board member of Made with Music, a not-for-profit organisation delivering early years, primary school and family music in and around Leeds.

 

When not making music, Charlie can be found cooking with his daughters or avidly cleaning his car.