Biography
Charlotte Baskerville (born 1994) was educated at The Godolphin School, Salisbury, where she held a music scholarship. She read music at Christ’s College, Cambridge, taking a BA in 2015, and wrote a master’s thesis on the cognition of music under the supervision of Prof Ian Cross. Charlotte was a soprano choral scholar at Christ’s under the direction of Prof David Rowland and developed a flair for choral composition under Christopher Brown (Clare College). She won the prestigious Christ’s College Charles Blackham Memorial Recital Competition in 2016 (clarinet) and was co-leader of the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain.
Charlotte is a second year Sir Jack Lyons research scholar studying for a PhD in Composition at the University of York. Her research, supervised by Dr Stef Conner, aims to enhance cultural wellbeing through an original and exploratory approach to placemaking through community- and heritage-driven composition. As part of this, in early 2025 she collaborated with the Three Choirs Festival on their outreach project ‘This is Us’. Through a series of workshops, six original songs were co-created with Herefordshire based primary schools and then performed in concert in Hereford Cathedral. Charlotte has already received several prestigious accolades for her research, including winning the Co-production and Wellbeing strand at the 2025 York Celebrating Qualitative Research Conference, and being named runner-up at the 2025 British Federation of Women Graduates Presentation Day.
Charlotte currently lives in rural Worcestershire with her husband and their cat Hope. In addition to her research, she is a highly experienced music educator, most recently holding the position of Head of Choral Music at Warwick School. Charlotte has also recently been appointed as Deputy Conductor of the Saint Cecilia Singers (Gloucester Cathedral’s Chamber Choir) and was an RSCM Emerging Leader for 2024/5. Additionally, she sings with a number of choirs in Cheltenham, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and the surrounding areas and plays the clarinet with several ensembles in Cheltenham.
Charlotte’s compositions are published by Encore Publications, Chichester Music Press and Banks Music Publications (Kassian Choral Series) and recorded on the Resonus Classics label by St. Martin’s Voices. Her works have been performed across the UK by numerous leading ensembles including: Winchester Cathedral Choir, Salisbury Cathedral Choir, Chichester Cathedral Choir, Bristol Phoenix Choir, York Minster Choir, Ely Cathedral Choir, Tewkesbury Abbey Choir, The Choir of Christ’s College Cambridge, The Choir of Peterhouse College Cambridge, The Guild Chapel Choir (Stratford-Upon-Avon), Bristol Cathedral Consort, St. Bartholomew The Great, St. Cecilia Singers (Gloucester Cathedral), Bath Abbey Choir, and Musica Deo Sacra (Tewkesbury Abbey).
Of particular note, her piece Give us Grace (from Three Prayers of Jane Austen) has been performed in concert at Winchester Cathedral as part of the Southern Cathedrals Festival in July 2024, and by Bath Abbey Choir during the 2025 Jane Austen Festival. Additionally Creator of the stars of night was included as part of the 2023 and 2024 Advent Processions at York Minster and Ely Cathedral, as well as services at Bristol Cathedral and Peterhouse College, Cambridge. Furthermore, A tender shoot was premiered at Tewkesbury Abbey’s Advent Carol Service in 2023 and further performed in 2024 at both Tewkesbury Abbey and St. Bartholomew The Great. Her anthem Verbum Supernum was also included as the Communion Motet for Sunday Eucharist as part of Tewkesbury Abbey’s Musica Deo Sacra Festival of Music in the Liturgy 2022 and by Christ’s College, Cambridge in March 2023 as part of the Minerva Festival.
Charlotte’s works are held in high acclaim and she won the Fitzhardinge Consort’s Christmas Carol Composition Competition for Young Women Composers in 2024 with her piece Of a rose synge we. It was premiered at St. George’s, Bristol in concert given by the Fitzhardinge Consort in December 2024.
Links
A Babe is Born: Music for Christmas (St. Martin’s Voices, Andrew Earis, Resonus Classics, 2025)
BFWG Research Presentation Day (2025)
Three Choirs Festival: This is Us (2025)
Cambridge University Library Curious Cures: A Charm Against Rats (2025)
RSCM Review of Creator of the Stars of Night (2023)
The Ode Article – November 2022
Charlotte Baskerville 