Charlotte Jolly

Clarinet - Bass Clarinet - Saxophones - Voice

Biography

Charly Jolly is a music leader, clarinet and saxophonist and singer in community settings. Her work is based on the principle that everyone is musical and that creative music-making should be regularly available to people at all stages of life. She works with the full age spectrum from birth to end of life and everything in between.

Charly completed Spitalfields Music’s reputable Trainee Music Leader scheme in 2021-2022 run by in partnership with Britten Pears Arts. Since completing the training she now works on many community BPA projects including Participate (for people in later life), Group A (inclusive youth singing project) and Mini Music Makers at the Red House for 0-5 year olds and their adults.

Charly also works for Cohere Arts on their Creative Spaces project for people living with long covid and also their Creative Companions project in partnership with St Helena’s Hospice.

As a clarinet and saxophone player Charly loves working as a supporting musician in community settings, she performs with and without sheet music and is comfortable with improvisation and collaborative songwriting.

She has worked with Sinfonia Viva as a supporting musician in different project settings including a Special School with James Redwood and a place for people with early onset dementia with Sam Glazer. In 2015 Charly worked on the groundbreaking opera for babies project Musical Rumpus for Spitalfields Music.

Charly has a passion for creating interactive and inclusive musical early years experiences for 0-5 year olds. Her self-composed show Beekabop has been part of the Aldeburgh Festival 2019 and 2022. In 2021 she worked on the Germination project by Magic Acorns in Great Yarmouth and their principles of child-led musical play lies at the heart of her early years music approach. She holds a PGCert from Centre of Research in Early Childhood (CREC).

Charly writes and performs with the experimental progressive rock brass collective Perhaps Contraption who focus in high energy street performances around the UK, Europe and the US. Their latest album is Nearly Human which was released in 2022. It’s a theatrical show about the cosmos and our existence within it. It was created through a 2 year residency at Britten Pears Arts from 2017-2019.

Charly has a first class BMus Hons degree from Trinity Laban in clarinet performance (2009) and continues to work on freelance performance projects as a clarinet and saxophone player. She has performed with These New Puritans, The Lontano Ensemble, Brighton Philharmonic, Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Deafinitey Theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe, Spitalfields Music’s Musical Rumpus tours Run Rindle Run and the Lyrebird (operas for babies), The New Music Players, Tafahum Ensemble and many more.

Rock Saxophone

Perhaps Contraption
Tenor Sax / Vocals

Jazz clarinet

Hetty & The Jazzato Band
London-based Italian Jazz Quintet

Contemporary Bass Clarinet

Ed Hughes - Chamber Concerto
with the New Music Players

Rock Cover

Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side
Impromptu solo with Amanda Palmer

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