Lunchtime Live is a concert free to attend in the Abbey, offering musicians the chance to showcase their skills to a welcoming audience. Join us to watch this wonderful duo perform some classics!
PROGRAMME
Von ewiger Liebe – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
6 Songs from "A Shropshire Lad" – George Butterworth (1885-1916)
Saluste du Bartas – Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955)
O falce di luna – Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Notte – Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Fancy – Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Fancie – Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
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 is 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, with their debut album Les Chansons des Roses released on Convivium Records receiving rave reviews. 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.
Charlie is a deputy lay clerk at Ripon Cathedral and York Minster. He studied singing with Arlene Rolph and Jane Anthony, and more recently with Sarah Rhodes. He has given solo recitals across the county, and sang Fauré Requiem solos for a massed choirs performance at the Royal Northern College of Music.
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. He also sits on the Music & Worship Committee at Ripon Cathedral.
When not making music, Charlie can be found cooking with his daughters or avidly cleaning his car.
ALISON GILL is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, specialising as an accompanist and répétiteur. Whilst at the RAM she made her Wigmore Hall debut, filmed for Channel 4, and was chosen as one of ten pianists to perform alongside Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars in Satie's 19 hour work Vexations, taking place in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern.
Alison has now returned to the North of England and is highly sought after as an accompanist across the region, working regularly with soloists and ensembles that include the Chorus of the Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Jervaulx Singers and has accompanied choral masterclasses with composers including John Rutter, Bob Chilcott, Will Todd and Eriks Esenvalds. Alongside these regular collaborations Alison works as an accompanist in residence for Leeds Conservatoire, Durham University, Samling Artists and for the BBC Proms held at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music. Alison is also accompanist-in-residence for the Berkshire Choral International, collaborating with them for their courses and performances in Durham Cathedral, Barcelona's Palau de la Musica, the Teatro Verdi in Florence, the Musikverein in Vienna and in 2025 for a summer residency in Berlin.
Alison was invited to give the modern premiere of Charles Stanford's piano concerto in B flat, performed at Ushaw Hall in Durham with the Orchestra Cipriani. Other concerto performances have included the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F with Huddersfield Symphony Orchestra, both Shostakovich’s piano concertos and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Mowbray Orchestra, Edward Gregson's Concertante for Piano and Brass Band with Fishburn Band, Roderick William's transcription of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G for piano and 8 voices with the Jervaulx Singers, in 2024 performances of Grieg’s Concerto in A Minor and Mozart’s Concerto no.21 in Durham Cathedral and this spring she will perform Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F with the Tynedale Orchestra at Hexham Abbey.
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