Charlie Beale is a choral conductor, a jazz educator, and a speaker on the arts and LGBT issues.
For more than a decade, he served as artistic director of New York City Gay Men’s Chorus. Under his energized leadership, the chorus expanded to 275 singers, renewed its passionate sound, became more interactive with audiences during performances, and transformed its outreach to include SAGE Singalongs for LGBTQ elders, Youth Pride Chorus and an expanded Schools program.
NYCGMC is recognized for its commercial success and innovative performances across the US and internationally. The choir has performed to stadium-sized audiences with Demi Lovato and Sia, at Carnegie Hall with Alan Cumming, guested with the New Philharmonic Orchestra at Lincoln Center, sung in the Emmy Award-winning movie The Normal Heart and at GALA Festival in Denver, and raised $55,000 for Marriage Equality in Ireland during a single Dublin performance.
A campaigner for stylistic diversity within music education, Charlie is one of the UK’s leading jazz educators. He served on the resource team of the International Association for Jazz Education and was nominated for a UK Jazz Parliamentary Award, being central to implementing grade exams for beginner jazz musicians.
Charlie is vice president of the Board of Directors of GALA Choruses. He gives frequent choral clinics and workshops internationally, such as the Coro Gay Ciudad de México, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Charlotte, an all-Australia LGBT chorus, and has been central to ‘Big Gay Sing’ events in Denver, Trafalgar Square in London, and New York City. He is a prolific writer and arranger in jazz and choral music, published by Oxford, Hal Leonard, Faber, and ABRSM Publishing.